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COSTA RICA LEADERSFRANKLIN CHANGFranklin Ramon Chang Diaz was born on 5th April 1950 in San Jose, Costa Rica and is a former NASA astronaut. Franklin shares the record for the most spaceflights having completed seven space shuttle missions and he was the third Latin American to venture into space. He has received several awards from the government of Costa Rica in honor of his achievements and works.The VASIMR method for heating plasma was originally developed during nuclear fusion research. VASIMR is intended to bridge the gap between high thrust, low specific impulse chemical rockets and low-thrust, high-specific impulse electric propulsion, but has not yet demonstrated high thrust. The VASIMR concept originated in 1977 with former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Díaz, who has been develo- ping the technology ever since.CLAUDIA POLLClaudia Maria Poll Ahrens was born on 21st December 1972 and is the only gold medalist of Costa Rica. She won the 200-meter freestyle swimming event to clinch the first-ever gold medal for Costa Rica in the 1996 Olympics. In the subse- quent 2000 Olympics, Claudia won two bronze medals for Costa Rica. In the year 1997, she named the World Swimmer of the year by Swimming World Magazine.