During his most recent to Costa Rica as a special guest for the Festival of Lights, Franklin Chang revealed plans to open a 100% Costa Rican Laboratory here in the country.

The lab will be a subsidiary of his company Ad Astra Technologies Inc. The company is working on development of Chang’s plasma motor and the lab here will support that work. Only Costa Ricans will be hired, many that have worked with Chang in NASA or who have worked in other countries.

The importance for Chang is that Costa Rica can export space technology and at the same time keep local talent employed here: ” Here we have a natural resource that is even better than biodiversity, it is the gray matter. We have people who are capable and highly educated, now instead of going to Switzerland, Germany, or England, they can stay here because we are going to pay them well. “