Retired  Costa Rican astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz, who made his seventh flight into space in June 2002, was confirmed as one of the three 2012 honorees by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which oversees the Hall of Fame’s annual selections. They will be added to the list of 79 astronauts enshrined in the Astronaut Hall of Fame since 1990, including all of NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo program pioneers.

Selected by NASA in May 1980, Dr. Chang Díaz became an astronaut in August 1981. A veteran of seven space flights, , he has logged over 1,601 hours in space, including 19 hours and 31 minutes in three spacewalks. He is also the  inventor of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) and other advanced propulsion technologies, and he founded the Ad Astra Rocket Company (AARC) in 2005, after 25 years of service as a NASA astronaut. AARC is dedicated to the development and comercialization of the VASIMR and related technologies.

Thank you Franklin to honor Costa Rica again!