NASA astronaut · birth-card coordinate
C. Michael Foale's Birth Card: The 8 of Spades
The Powerful Mind
A birth card is a calendar coordinate for the month and day. It is not fortune-telling and does not predict a spaceflight.
In the record
Colin Michael Foale (born 6 January 1957) is a British-American astrophysicist and a former NASA astronaut. The birth-card coordinate for January 6 is the 8 of Spades — a calendar position, not a forecast of a flight assignment.
The 8 of Spades coordinate
C. Michael Foale's birthday maps to the 8 of Spades (The Powerful Mind). Card Blueprints treats that as a 365-day coordinate: solar value = 55 − (2 × month + day), and the year is unused. It is not a prediction about a mission and not a verdict on C. Michael Foale. The card's own language, quoted as system copy rather than biography: You take the hard lead and you stay with the work after the call is made.
C. Michael Foale in the public record
He is a veteran of six space missions, and he is the only NASA astronaut to have flown extended missions aboard both Mir and the International Space Station. He was the second Briton in space and the first to perform a space walk. Until 17 April 2008, he held the record for most time spent in space by a US citizen: 374 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes, and as of 2024 he held the cumulative-time-in-space record for a British citizen. Foale was born in Louth, Lincolnshire, to a British father, Colin, and an American mother, Mary. His father was an RAF officer who retired with the rank of Air Commodore. Foale was raised in Cambridge and educated at The King's School, Canterbury. A member of the Air Training Corps, he studied at Queens' College, Cambridge receiving a first-class honours BA degree in natural sciences in 1978 (later promoted to a Cambridge MA), and subsequently a PhD in laboratory astrophysics in 1982, where his supervisor was Alan Cook. When he left university, he "owned two pairs of jeans, a donkey jacket, a bicycle and a pilot's licence; which shows I had my priorities absolutely right".
Summarised from the lead section of the Wikipedia article Michael Foale (CC BY-SA 4.0). No biographical facts were written for this page beyond that article.
Where the record meets the 8 of Spades
A card is a calendar coordinate, not a cause. What follows sets one line of the card's own published language beside one sentence of the sourced record, paired by a documented rule. It is a resemblance offered for the reader to weigh — not a claim about C. Michael Foale, and not a forecast of a spaceflight.
Cards in C. Michael Foale's fixed path
Birth card and karma
- 8♠ — Birth Card: The Powerful Mind
- 6♣ — Karma — Environment: The Nurturing Creator
- K♣ — Karma — Displacement: The Master Leader
Life Spread (Mercury → Result / Cosmic Reward)
- A♥ — Life Spread — Mercury
- A♦ — Life Spread — Venus
- Q♦ — Life Spread — Mars
- 5♥ — Life Spread — Jupiter
- 3♠ — Life Spread — Uranus
- 9♥ — Life Spread — Neptune
- 7♣ — Life Spread — Pluto
Planetary ruling card, karma and Life Spread
- 3♣ — Planetary Ruling Card: The Creative Communicator
- K♦ — PRC Karma — Environment: The Wealthy King
- 5♦ — PRC Karma — Displacement: The Dynamic Entrepreneur
- Q♠ — PRC Life Spread — Saturn: The Wise Guide
- J♣ — PRC Life Spread — Uranus: The Creative Messenger
- 9♦ — PRC Life Spread — Neptune: The Universal Provider
- 7♠ — PRC Life Spread — Pluto: The Questioning Mind
- 2♣ — PRC Life Spread — Result / Cosmic Reward: The Collaborative Builder
Birth card from the month and day. Karma cards are fixed to the birth card. The planetary ruling card comes from the sun sign's ruling planet — the signs with two rulers carry two. The Life Spread is the birth card's fixed row of nine in the Life Spread — the cards that colour each 52-day period for life. Planetary period and long-range cards move year by year and are not shown on a static page.
Strategic and powerful thinking
He is a veteran of six space missions, and he is the only NASA astronaut to have flown extended missions aboard both Mir and the International Space Station.
Paired on work, health and mastery — the domain ♠ governs in this system. Markers in the record: veteran.
Also on the record
- While a postgraduate student at Cambridge University, he participated in the organisation and execution of scientific scuba diving projects.
- Pursuing a career in the US Space Program, he moved to Houston, Texas to work on Space Shuttle navigation problems for McDonnell Douglas.
- In June 1983, Foale joined the NASA Johnson Space Center in the payload operations area of the Mission Operations Directorate.
- In his capacity as payload officer in the Mission Control Center, he was responsible for payload operations on Space Shuttle missions STS-51G, 51-I, 61-B and 61-C.
Other astronauts with this card
- Duane E. Graveline — NASA Group 4 · Deceased · selected, no flights in the Fact Book table
- Guy S. Gardner — NASA Group 9 · Former · 2 flights
FAQ
- What is C. Michael Foale's birth card?
- The 8 of Spades. January 6 maps to that card through the public Card Blueprints formula. The year of birth is not used.
- Does a birth card predict a spaceflight?
- No. These pages are coordinates, not fortune-telling. A birth card names a calendar day in a 52-card year. It does not forecast missions, character, or fate.
- Where do C. Michael Foale's dates come from?
- Birth date 1957-01-06 is the day-precision date on C. Michael Foale's NASA astronaut biography (NASA Group 12 · Former · 6 flights), verified against Wikidata P569 (CC0, day precision, Gregorian preferred). The two sources match. Year-only NASA dates and NASA↔Wikidata conflicts are dropped, not guessed. Page hooks and evidence come from the Wikipedia REST summary (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Get the $9 Deep Dive
The Deep Dive is a written card report for your own birthday — not an astronaut reading.
Sources: NASA astronaut biography (C. Michael Foale) + NASA Astronaut Fact Book (list of U.S. astronauts) + Wikidata CC0 (Q540379) + Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0 (Michael Foale). Birth date 1957-01-06 is the NASA day-precision date, verified against Wikidata P569 (match).