The sky's the limit: for Latinos in NASA: unbeknownst to the Hispanic Community's mainstream, there are plenty of Latino heroes pushing the envelope in Space Exploration

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, Oct-Nov, 2004 by Wendy Pedrero

There aren't too many people out there who have never in their lives dreamed, or at least wondered, what it's like to travel in space. It's a fascination that most of us have felt as children, sometimes even as grownups. I know that I, for one, have often felt it.

Jennifer Marie Flores is 14 years old, and a full blooded Latina who dreams about someday becoming an astronaut. She recently attended NASA's Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, where she won an award for Robotics programming, and with it a renewed excitement about the possibilities of a career within the US Space Program. Her achievements made us wonder if she could realistically reach that goal someday. Is it possible for a young Latina like her to become a US Astronaut? This was a question that needed all answer. Has a Latino ever made it to space? If so, when? We set out to find the answers, and what we found out truly amazed us.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was established in 1958, and so far it has accomplished many great achievements in both air and space travel. It remains, to this day, a leading force in scientific research and spare exploration worldwide. Earlier this year, President Bush announced a new vision for space exploration, an aggressive initiative that focuses in the usage of human and robotics resources to expedite the exploration of the solar system. Under the new program, NASA is developing cutting edge projects that will include the return of man to the moon, and eventually, manned travels to Mars and beyond. For this to happen in a relatively short time, NASA will need to have the most technologically advanced equipment, and we were surprised to find our that one of the most relevant pieces of that puzzle, the development of a propulsion system that would significantly reduce the amount of travel time consumed, is in the hands of a Latino astronaut born and raised in Costa Rica.

In order to find out more about him and others like him, Latino Leaders Magazine caught up with their busy schedules at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Franklin Chang-Diaz, Ph.D.

Director of Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory NASA Johnson Space Center--Houston, Texas

Talking to Franklin Chang-Diaz one would be hard pressed to realize the importance of his contribution to the US Space Program. Easy to talk to and completely unassuming, Chang-Diaz talks about his current projects and his many visits to space with a passion and ease that could render anyone speechless.

Franklin was born in 1950 and raised in Costa Rica. He was only 18 when he decided to come to the United States to pursue his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. At the early age of 7, Franklin had been fascinated by the orbiting of the satellite Sputnik and had decided right then and there that someday he would travel to space. Upon deciding to move to the US to pursue his dream, Franklin faced the typical challenges of many Hispanic immigrants: he spoke no English and he had no money Still, his goal was to attend school here, and thanks to the more relaxed laws of the time, he was able to enroll in a public High School in Hartford, Connecticut, where he repeated his senior year of school in order to learn English and to accrue a good enough GPA to gain a scholarship in college. He successfully achieved both and received a scholarship to the University of Connecticut, where he enrolled as a prospective Engineering student with the hopes of eventually becoming a rocket scientist. Coincedentally, Franklin started college the same year that man landed on the moon, an event that reaffirmed his desire to become an astronaut. "It was a reaffirmation of something that at the time was kind of still elusive, because number one, I was from another country, I was Hispanic I was just beginning to find my way in the United States, all of the astronauts were sort of the standard, all American looking guys ... So, those kinds of molds had not been broken yet, but I had the advantage of having grown in Costa Rica, where I never was really subjected to discrimination, at least not to the extent that was [prevalent] in the US So I grew up with a very strong sense of work and the capability to pursue anything I wanted." Then he added: "Part of my background is Chinese, and my Chinese roots were very strong in work ethics, and I also never thought that it was necessary to he a military person to be an astronaut. I always felt that astronauts of the future would mostly be scientists." Unable to join the US military due to his foreign origin, Chang-Diaz decided to pursue his goal as a civilian instead. He carefully projected his career based on the progress of the space program, and he soon discovered that NASA was beginning to hire scientists to become astronauts. By the time the moon exploration ended, the scientists were already in training for space travel, and a few of them eventually traveled to space under the Skylab Program, the first US Space station. "I became convinced that science, engineering and research was the proper route, and of course if I knew that the chances of becoming an astronaut were very small, I had to be realistic and think that, if I didn't make it, I wanted to have a profession that I really liked. That's why I decided to go into Physics and Engineering." He made the right decision. "My passion has been to develop rockets ... work on rockets, and that's what Fro doing right now," These days, as a rocket scientist working for NASA, where he became an astronaut in 1981, Chang-Diaz is in charge of the Plasma Propulsion Laboratory His current project's goal is to develop a new and improved propulsion system based on Plasma energy, an extremely hot gas that is the essential component of the Sun A raw source of power, its intensity is such that it can not be contained by any material known to man In order to contain it as a rocket fuel source, Chang-Diaz and his team of scientists are developing an invisible magnetic fields system that resembles a rocket's nozzle so that the plasma energy can flow through it and power the rocket without melting the rest of the spaceship "This is a propulsion [for] rocket engines of the future; the engines that will take us to Mars, that will be much faster than any of the rockets that we have today, Which are basically chemical rackets We're preparing for this new technology to fly in about three years from now, and with the new vision that President Bush has outlined we're going to be well poised to start driving crews to Mars very quickly This is what I came to this country for".