The Costa Rica News (TCRN) -Costa Rica’s former astronaut, Franklin Chang, announced today that it surpassed its goal of raising $ 46,000 for the creation of a documentary that explains the features of a plasma rocket engine developed in its laboratories located in Costa Rica and the United States.
Regarding his successful fundraising project, the Costa Rican astronaut stated: “We reached our goal of $ 46,000 and beat it as if we were flying! You will be proud of the film,” wrote former NASA astronaut in his social network profiles.
The money was raised through the campaign “Animating VASIMR: The Future of Spaceflight”, which started in July through www.kickstarter.com and will finish next Monday.
Through the initiative anyone can offer voluntary donations to support the cause and so far contributions for a little over $ 54,000 have been registered.
In a video posted on the page, Chang explains that his company, Ad Astra Rocket, which has laboratories in the United States and Costa Rica, uses all of his financial resources to develop the rocket engine.
For this reason, Chang thought of raising funds to create a documentary that explains the capabilities of the technology he is working on and answers questions from the public through graphic animations.
In 2014 the engine is expected to be launched to space for a link with the International Space Station as part of an agreement signed between Ad Astra Rocket and the U.S. space agency NASA.
The Costa Rican ex-astronaut dreams with the plasma engine being used in spacecraft for all types of commercial and scientific activities, including trips to Mars.
Last year Franklin Chang became famous at NASA as one of the men with more trips to space, a total of seven between 1986 and 2002, in which he spent 66 days off the planet.
In 1986, he became the first Latin American astronaut and retired from NASA in 2005 to devote his time to his business and develop the revolutionary plasma engine. EFE
The Costa Rica News (TCRN)
San Jose
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