In the presence of his mother, President Oscar Arias, and enough rocket scientists to make quorum at a Mensa meeting, Costa Rican-U.S. astronaut Franklin Chang opened his new plasma lab in Liberia, capital of Guanacaste, in July. The staff of the lab, on the campus of EARTHUniversity, seeks to create a variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMR) to reduce the cost and time involved in sending spaceships to Mars. Chang’s U.S.-based Ad Astra Rocket Company runs the lab.
