* Astronomy

Ad Astra Rocket Company in Liberia
On July 15, 2006 a new space rocket facility was inaugurated in Liberia Costa Rica. The new site on the property of the Earth University is the Costa Rican sector of the Ad Astra Rocket Company (AARC) set up by Dr Franklin Chang Diaz, the Costa Rican physicist and astronaut.

The facility is to house further development of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), a concept invented by Dr Chang in 1979. Originally he worked on this project at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Masachussets, later moving it to the Lyndon Johnson Space Center in Houston. Previously under the auspices of NASA, Dr Chang decided to privatise the project and established his own company (Ad Astra) which he did in 2005. AARC is still in collaboration with NASA and other research facilities and industrial companies.

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