Asteroid 3540, Protesilaos, was discovered on October 27, 1973 by Friedrich Börngen at Tautenburg, Thuringia, Germany. A Jupiter Trojan, it has a period of 12 years, 8½ days.
Protesilaos was named for the first Greek warrior to jump to the shore when the Greeks first landed at Troy when the Trojan War started. He was killed by Aeneas.
Astrologically, Protesilaos seems to indicate initiating bold or pioneering action or the need for such action.
Bill Gates has Protesilaos in the fourth house, conjunct the Sun (to shine), semisextile Hidalgo (to push forward, to be ambitious), square Pholus (to initiate, to permeate) and quincunx Phaethon (a phenomenon).
Dallas tycoon Ross Perot put together a successful private rescue mission for some of his employees who were trapped in Iran by the Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution while Jimmy Carter was reacting with much less effectiveness regarding the US embassy staff taken hostage in Tehran. Later, Perot forced the two major political parties to listen to his message of fiscal responsibility as an independent presidential candidate in the 1990s. Perot has Protesilaos in the second house, conjunct Venus (values, money), semisextile the Ascendant (personal interests), trine Cruithne (branded), sesquiquadrate the Midheaven (career, authority, reputation), and quincunx Saturn (work, career, rewards and consequences).
Chuck Yeager (born February 13, 1923, in Myra, WV), the first human to fly faster than sound, has Protesilaos semisextile Damocles (danger, drastic change, pushing the envelope), sextile Uranus (aviation) and Hylonome (dangerous pursuits), and square Chiron (the key, the door-opener, shattering old concepts).
Enrico Fermi, who supervised the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago in 1942 that kicked off the Atomic Age, had Protesilaos sextile Chiron, quintile Ceres (to nurture), trine Mercury (ideas, thinking, writing, speech), sesquiquadrate Vesta (dedication, focus), biquintile the Sun, and opposite Juno (public persona) and Don Quixote (searching for adventure).
Clarence Birdseye (born December 9, 1886, in New York), the inventor of frozen food, had Protesilaos sextile Cruithne (heritage, culture), quintile Uranus (inventions, innovations) and Vesta, and quincunx Asbolus (something to say, having trouble getting people to listen). Trained as a biologist, Birdseye got the idea for frozen food working in Newfoundland, where he saw Innu quick-freeze fish by tossing it onto ice; in order to sell the masses on his invention, he had to create the entire infrastructure for it, including freezer display cases for grocery stores and refrigerated rail cars and trucks.
Cosmetics magnate Mary Kay Ash, who quit her corporate job and started her own company after a less qualified male co-worker was promoted over her, had Protesilaos conjunct Ceres and Chariklo (to glamorize), sextile Chaos (a new order) and the North Node (connections), and trine Hidalgo (to assert, ambition) and the South Node (separations).
Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon, has Protesilaos square Chiron, trine Dioretsa (something that sticks) and opposite Damocles.
Valentina Tereshkova (born March 6, 1937, in Maslennikovo, Yaroslavl, Russia), the first woman in space, has Protesilaos conjunct Chaos, semisextile Varuna (to grow big) and Hylonome, decile Ceres and sesquiquadrate Pluto (transformation).
The glyph for Protesilaos is mine.