There were about 500 people assembled at the induction ceremony of Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz into the Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center. When his name was introduced, a few Ticos in the crowd cheered and waived flags. He then received a greeting from President Laura Chinchilla, who spoke from Costa Rica via a satellite link provided by CNN Espanol:

“Costa Rica has been an exceptional country, with all the opportunities she has extended to her people, with the quality of human development and defense of freedom, and the support of a free public education system -even before the United States or the United Kingdom.

So in the end Costa Rica is this little country that is actually an incubator of many Franklin Changs, and I’m sure they are gaining inspiration from what is happening right now; we are finding success with technology investments, high innovation, software production…

What Franklin is culminating today will in some way happen again; so that many other young people, Costa Rican boys and girls, can derive more inspiration and take better advantage of the opportunities in this small country that is Costa Rica.”

Prior to her call to the Kennedy Space Center, President Laura Chinchilla announced posted an update to her personal Twitter account:

“It will be a pleasure to publicly salute Franklin Chang, and thank him on behalf of Costa Rica for his great achievement, on CNN Espanol in a few minutes.”

The exchange between Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz and President Laura Chinchilla was compiled by Casa Presidencial in a Storify page, a web-based platform that weaves stories from social media updates. The exchange between our President and Dr. Chang-Diaz unfolded in real-time through a series of Tweets and Instagrams.

Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz made the following request to our President:

“I ask Dona Laura to invest in our young people, so that we can be a prosperous nation; we should continue to strengthen education […] young people should not get discouraged; no one gets anywhere without the help of others. To invest in our youth is to invest in the future.”

The President also thanked Dr. Chang-Diaz for establishing the Ad Astra Rocket Company in Guanacaste, and added:

“The future Franklin Changs of Latin America are there, waiting for an opportunity through education. The greatest resource Latin America has is her young people. We should give them quality education.”

Two other astronauts from the Space Shuttle era were inducted along with Dr. Chang-Diaz: Kevin Chilton and Charles Precourt. There are now 82 names in the Astronaut Hall of Fame, including Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and Sally Ride.

Source: Radio Reloj (Costa Rica)