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Rockets With Tico Seal
Workers hurry under the hot sun
of Liberia, Guanacaste, to
complete the facility that will
play a major role in the
perfecting of the plasma rocket
that NASA will use to travel to
Mars.
Next July 15, the steel
structure has to be operational,
because on that day Costa Rican
born and former NASA astronaut
Franklin Chang, accompanied by
several scientists, will
inaugurate the lab. Chang has
worked on the plasma rocket
since 1979, first at MIT and
later at Lyndon B. Johnson Space
Center in Houston.
Even though progress has been
slow, it is estimated that the
first prototypes will be ready
next year and that by 2010 the
rockets will travel to space,
some with the seal "Made in
Costa Rica".
Chang is at the head of Ad Astra
Rocket, a company he established
in order to obtain private funds
for the project, which in its
first year in Costa Rica costs
us$1 million.
Ad Astra's home is in Houston,
where it keeps 90 percent of its
operations, but Chang expects to
eventually expand the 10 percent
it currently has in Costa Rica.
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