Orlando Figueroa (b. September 9, 1955) was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. When he was a child he loved to learn how mechanical toys worked. When he was in elementary school, he spent most of his time building things and looking for solutions to problems. In high school he was in advanced mathematics. He fell in love with space after that. He would gaze at the stars and moon and would try to imagine what it would be like to travel into space.