Thiele, Gerhard Julius Paul (1953– )

German astronaut with the European Space Agency (ESA). He flew on the Endeavour space shuttle flight in February 2000 for the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, logging over 268 hours in space. Thiele was selected to train as an astronaut at the German Aerospace Research Establishment in 1988. In 1992 he joined NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) to train as a payload specialist. He trained for a second time at the JSC in 1996, as a mission specialist, and joined the ESA in 1998.