Vladimir Pletser

Vladimir Pletser (born 28 February 1956) is Director of Space Training Operations at Blue Abyss since 2018, where he is in charge of developing astronaut training programs. From 2016 to early 2018, he was a Visiting Professor and Scientific Adviser at the Technology and Engineering Centre for Space Utilization (CSU) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. He supported the preparation of scientific experiments in microgravity for the Chinese Tiangong space station and for aircraft parabolic flights. He worked previously from 1985 till early 2016 as a senior Physicist Engineer at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) of ESA.

He is an expert in microgravity during aircraft parabolic flights for which he holds a world record. He is known as ‘Mister Parabolic Flights’, ‘Mister Parabolas’, ‘Homo Parabolicus’ or ‘Mister Microgravity’.

An astronaut candidate for Belgium since 1991, he spent two months in training in 1995 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Selected by the Mars Society in 2001, he participated in three international campaigns of crewed Mars mission simulations. Provided by Wikipedia