by Rod Hughes

Dr. Franklin Chang’s Ad Astra rocket lab in Guanacaste and NASA formally signed a cooperative agreement (reported last week in The Tico Times), giving NASA first grabs on discoveries from Astra’s experiments with the plasma rocket engine.

When reported by the English-language weekly last Friday, the only details to be ironed out were negotiations about patent rights. The Costa Rica born Chang, a former NASA astronaut and U.S.-trained physicist, explained that the agreement allows Ad Astra access to NASA research that will smooth the way to the projected 2010 test of the plasma engine.

Although the agreement does not imply any NASA commitment to buy the rocket engine, Chang noted that it does clearly demonstrate the space agency’s interest in it. The plasma engine works like a chemical rocket but, instead of the fuel currently employed, gas is superheated until it gives up one of its electrons. It is cheaper to run than current propulsion and accelerates faster.