 Oh, and welcome to Stand the Energy Man here on Think Tech, Hawaii. I'm Stan Osserman, formerly, and I say formerly as of this past Wednesday from the Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technology, and now it's just little old me coming to Think Tech on my own time and doing a host job, and I love doing this stuff. I really appreciate the feedback I get from everybody, and today we have a really great show. I was fortunate in a couple weeks, actually a couple months ago, to be in Washington, D.C., with some of the other folks from Hawaii, to attend the Department of Energy's annual merit review on hydrogen, and I met some great, great folks there that had great presentations, and one of the gentlemen I met is our guest today, Dr. Franklin Tang Diaz, and an interesting gentleman, he's got an interesting background and I'll let him talk about it, but I think he kind of splits this work time between Houston and Costa Rica, which I kind of admire, because I almost retired in Costa Rica, and if I wasn't living in Hawaii, I probably would have retired in Costa Rica, but anyway, Doc, thanks for joining us today. This is really an honor to have you on the show. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure, Stan. Well, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself if they haven't heard about you already, and we'll let you get started. Okay. Well, as you said, I am originally from Costa Rica, another paradise just like Hawaii, very similar features, volcanic beaches, beautiful oceans, and so on, and I always was fascinated by space. Space was my calling from a very early age, and I was a child of Sputnik, like many people my age, we were transformed by the whole opening of the space age. So I wanted to follow a career in space, and so in 1968, I emigrated to the United States. I flew to the U.S. as a teenager. I was 18 years old, and I spoke no English at the time, and I didn't have any money to speak off. And so I, like many other, many immigrants to this country, I just had to open my future, my way in this great land. And I went to school, learned English. I went back to high school. I had already graduated from high school in Costa Rica, because I didn't speak English, I went backwards a little bit to pick up some steam, and learn the language, and got a scholarship to go to the university, the University of Connecticut. That's where I ended up, studied engineering. And all that time, you know, I aimed the space program, looking at the space program, and I was very fortunate to be starting my college career. When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, and I had followed that whole program from the beginning, interestingly enough, that at the time that happened a couple of years later, the space program was canceled, at least the moon program was canceled by President Nixon at the time. And all of a sudden, we were immersed in an energy crisis. That was an energy crisis of 1973, when the OPEC countries began to curtail the export of oil to the Western countries. I remember that. That was when they started having a gas crisis and rationing gas. Yeah, so anyway, two things that were kind of combined. One was the cancellation of the moon program, and the opening of opportunities in the field of energy, which also interests me. And I was studying engineering and physics. And of course, the space program was not really an option to continue on. So I decided to go into energy and to nuclear power. And I went to graduate school. I graduated then from the University of Connecticut as a mechanical engineer and as a physicist, and then I went to grad school at MIT and got involved in the fusion program, thermonuclear fusion, something very futuristic. I was always thinking that space somehow was going to combine this, eventually it was going to converge to this. And sure enough, in the late 70s, NASA began to open up again with the testing of the space shuttle. And I always wanted to be an astronaut. And so I had become a US citizen in 1977. And I had all the requirements. So I applied to the program in 78. Of course, I was rejected the first time, like many others. I mean, there was nothing new. But I applied again in 1979. There was another opportunity. And I was selected in 1980 as a member of the ninth class of astronauts for the space shuttle program. And so I began working at NASA as an astronaut in training in 1980 and ended up spending 25 years in the space program. It was tremendous, for me, the realization of a lifelong dream. I flew for the first time in space in 1986 on my first flight. And I ended up flying seven times in space. I flew all of the space shuttles, except for the Challenger. And went to the Russian space station, Mir, spent some time there. I got involved in many of the major missions. And I helped build the International Space Station. So 25 years as an astronaut, it was an amazing journey for me. And then all that time, I was involved in the development of a rocket engine that would be an electric propulsion system for deeper missions into space. Something that would go far beyond the speed of a chemical rocket. And so that research was ongoing, sort of in parallel, as I was doing my flying in space. And eventually, in the early 2000s, 2004, I decided that it was time for me to move on to sort of my next goal or my next dream, which is to develop this propulsion system. And so I founded a company. I founded the Arrasa Rocket Company in 2005. And I've been since then working in the field of rockets. And along the way in 2009 or so, I began to diversify the company into the field of energy and hydrogen. Because I lived on the space shuttle on hydrogen fuel cells. And to me, that was the future. That would be the future of electric transportation on Earth. And so I wanted to try this hydrogen economy and hydrogen infrastructure in Costa Rica. Because Costa Rica does not have any natural resources of oil or natural gas. And so I think the niche for hydrogen in Costa Rica is perfect. And it's a country that prides itself of having a very clean electrical infrastructural hydroelectric and wind and solar and so on. They're very similar to Hawaii and in some ways, I think. And in fact, my first connection with the hydrogen for real in Costa Rica was through Hawaii. I came to visit the installations in Hawaii. And that's how the whole thing got started. So we're very interested and very happy to have become very pioneers in Costa Rica and Latin America in the implementation of hydrogen technology. We need to do a sister-state thing between Costa Rica and Hawaii, I think, and that'd be a great adventure. I think so. I think that would be a good thing. I have two personal questions to ask before we get into this. And the first one is, where does an astronaut, in terms of thousands of feet, where does an astronaut space begin? How many tens of thousands of feet up? Well, the typical number is 100 kilometers, something like 50 miles up in the sky. That's where the boundary. But there is no real definite boundary. I mean, the atmosphere just gets thinner and thinner and thinner. And eventually, there's very little air. And presumably back where you are in the 300 or 350, 400 kilometers are altitudes for the space station. That is space. You're in space. There's no question about it. I'm asking to see if I'm in trouble for one of the flights I had in F4. My next question though is, did you know Eileen Collins on the space shuttle program? I do. I do know Eileen very well. In fact, we trained together. And we never flew together. But we've flown airplanes together. And she joined the program. When I was there, she joined a few classes later. But a wonderful, wonderful person. Very good. Very, very person that many men and women emulate. I agree. She was my final instructor in T-38 in the Air Force. And I've always watched her career. I know now she works for an insurance company. I won't say which one. I'm a board of directors. But yeah, she's a great lady. And I've always admired her. Oh, that's neat that we have that connection. Anyway, let's talk a little bit about energy. You mentioned that up in space, the space program uses a lot of fuel cells in the space program. And I find it kind of ironic that most of the folks that I run into are afraid of hydrogen because they don't think it's safe. And I can't think of a more critical environment that would prove the safety of it than in outer space. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the space shuttle, all of the space shuttles, of course, relied on hydrogen. And we carried containers or tanks of liquid hydrogen and also liquid oxygen because, of course, we don't have any air out there to bring oxygen in. So we carried oxygen and hydrogen. And we would combine both in fuel cells. The special had three fuel cells. And we produce plenty of electricity and also plenty of water. That was the other thing that was pretty neat. All of the drinking water for us came from the fuel cells. And in fact, we used to produce so much water that we had to dump it overboard in many cases. And in some cases, when we flew to the Russian space station near, we would actually collect water before we would do the docking and have big bags, plastic bags full of water because the Russians always were in need of clean water in the near station. So that was amazing to me that water is such an important byproduct that could be really used on Earth. Did you also generate hydrogen with electrolyzers or anything with solar power? No, the shuttle didn't have the staying power, the capability to stay there for more. I mean, the longest that a shuttle could have stayed, perhaps with an extended duration kit of hydrogen and oxygen would be maybe a month curtailing and being very frugal about the use of energy. But it was the space station right now does not use hydrogen fuel cells. They do have solar energy. But when we operate on the moon, on Mars, the water cycle will be critical, it will be very important to be able to produce hydrogen and oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to generate electricity and also both of them to produce water. So I think fuel cells are going to come back into the space program in a big way when we deploy activities in the surface of the moon and Mars and so on. I tell you what, Dr. Tang, we're going to take a quick break here. When we come back, what I'd like to talk about is some of the efforts that you're involved in in Costa Rica to get their economy up on hydrogen. I'd really like to hear about that. We'll be back in 60 seconds. OK. Hello, everybody. My name is Walter Kawai. I'm your host for a monthly live streaming video entitled Ukulele Songs of Hawaii. Where I bring on guests, we enjoy talking story about the music industry here in Hawaii, sometimes going back 50 decades if possible, and always having some good fun talking with entertainers. We're here located at Think Tech Hawaii downtown Honolulu at the Pioneer Plaza building and in their studios. And so join me next month for Ukulele Songs of Hawaii. Hey, hello, and welcome back to Stan Osterman and Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii. And we're actually coming to you live from outer space. You believe the background. And our guest today, a certified astronaut, Dr. Franklin Chang Diaz, who also happens to have been brought up in Costa Rica, one of my other favorite places. But on my bucket list, yes, to visit. And I'll have to get over there sometime. And I think I will now that I know somebody down there. Dr. Chang, thanks for being with us today. And let's talk a little bit about Costa Rica and what you're doing in hydrogen down in Costa Rica. OK. Well, Costa Rica is a very small country in Central America. It is between Panama on the South and Nicaragua on the North. It is a country that does not have any energy resources in the form of oil or natural gas. So Costa Rica, from very early on, electrified its matrix of energy matrix with hydroelectric power. The country has plenty of hydroelectric power. And it has a lot of sun and also a lot of very good wind as well. It has volcanoes as well. So it has a lot of geothermal capabilities as well. Now, all of the transportation in Costa Rica is still fossil-based. That is, oil or gasoline or diesel, which has to be imported. And when you look at the total amount of energy that the country consumes, only about 30% of that is electricity. About 70% of the energy is still imported, fossil, gasoline, diesel, NAFTA, bunker oil, and so on. And so we want to change that. We want to move away from fossil fuels in the transportation sector and into hydrogen, because obviously, the country has plenty of sun and plenty of wind to supply all of its needs in terms of transportation. So that's what we're set out to accomplish. The country is very small. It's only 50,000 square kilometers. It only has about 5 million people. It is a very stable democracy. It's one of probably the most stable democracies in the Western world, in Latin America, certainly, for sure. And it's well-educated. The country is well-educated. And so I think the conditions are all right. The economic conditions as well, because the price of gasoline and the price of diesel is sufficiently high to warrant an alternative fuel for transportation. So hydrogen comes to that level of equity where it becomes interesting to apply it. So I think the niche is correct, and we're trying to do that. How much of your power is produced by hydroelectric? Because the difference between wind, solar, and hydroelectric is hydroelectric is a good firm, steady power source. When the sun, solar is not always available, and wind, of course, is not always available. And that becomes a big issue here in Hawaii, because we have solar and we have wind, but we don't really have the hydroelectric except on the Big Island per se. And the only other natural resource we can tap into for firm, steady power that's also renewable is geothermal. So how much of your energy is currently hydroelectric? And are you looking at geothermal for any or long-term basal of power? Yeah, the bulk of the electric power is still hydroelectric. I'd say maybe 80% or so of that 30% which constitutes electricity. We're not talking about transportation now. We're talking just about electric grid. Only I'd say maybe about maybe 80% of that electricity is hydroelectric. There is a growing infrastructure in geothermal power. Yes, there's a couple of big projects being developed right now. And of course, wind and solar as well. And more and more people are beginning to open up to solar. The biggest problem in Costa Rica is the fact that energy is a monopoly. It's a government monopoly. And it is difficult sometimes to deal with that, because it kind of stifles a little bit the competition process of the private sector. But within those parameters, frameworks, that I think Costa Rica has really been an example of clean energy. In fact, there were times when the country was 100% carbon-free, at least in the electric part. Again, I'm not talking about the transportation. But the electric part is still a significant portion of the total matrix. Dr. Tseng, I tell you what, we have your video. Why don't we show your video now and give some folks a chance to brush up on their Spanish and their quick reading? And see what's going on in Costa Rica. OK. I think I'm most proud of the Adastra team. It's like they've entered this project with the heart. They've been dedicated completely to soul and body for the success of this project. It's been difficult, very, very difficult. We've had many failures, many troubles, many problems. But these guys have not been measured with that. They've continued forward, they've continued with perseverance and they've achieved the success at the end of the day. There is an operational knowledge that is not achieved by reading books. And that has made us much more robust, more capable of solving problems that are always present in the course of things. Things, in theory, work very well. In practice, no. What we've tried so far is that it can be done. And it can be done. Technically, we were able to do it. The Adastra team, together with the other members of the project, were able to show that a hydrogen ecosystem is possible to do it in Costa Rica. The important thing is that the Costa Rican directly benefits with public transport. A person who goes to work every day and pays, let's say, 500 columns to go, let's say, from the city of Liberia to maybe work at the airport, he could get on a hydrogen bus and not feel a financial difference that doesn't cost him any more. But he will go much more comfortably, he will have a very, very advanced transport and we are going to do it with fuel produced in the country and without contaminating the environment. I think that the Costa Ricans have all the necessary ingredients to do this. We have our gray material in abundance. We have a peaceful, educated country with attention to the environment. What we need is to get out of the way. Doc, thanks for sharing that video with us. That's really awesome. And I guarantee you there is a heck of a lot in common between Hawaii and Costa Rica. It's on my bucket list. I'm going to get down there. Two of my favorite hobbies, fishing and surfing. So besides hydrogen, it's got fishing and surfing calling my name. But we've got about two minutes left and I'd like to leave it all to you to just talk a little bit more about what you envision for Costa Rica in the future. Are you going to retire down there? Or are you going to do the snowbird thing? Go back and forth. I guess having flown in space transforms the human being into a citizen of a planet. And we don't even think of ourselves anymore as citizens of a given country, per se, but more like a citizen of a planet. And I just kind of live everywhere. I live wherever anywhere. This planet is so small. And I feel kinship and communion with just about everybody. So I've been living in the US for more than 50 years, most of my life. I love Costa Rica. I love Latin America. I love. I have Chinese roots in my background, European roots. Well, I mean, you name it. It's just a citizen of a planet Earth. What is the Chinese term? Chapsui. Chapsui. Yeah, I guess so. I think that someday, this is what I tell people, that most of humanity will be living outside of our planet. And the planet, the Earth, will perhaps be maybe a national park of humanity, the patrimony of our human civilization. And that's why it's so important to keep it and take care of it, and make sure that we don't mess it up. But eventually, most of us, most people will be living elsewhere. And the Earth will be the place to come to see the beauty of where we came from. That's the world we'll go on vacation, huh? That's right. Right. Doctor, it's been awesome having you on the show. It's really great. I definitely want to have you back. But I know Mitch Ewen has a show on Think Tech on Wednesdays. And he's mad at me because I got to you first. Oh, really? So he's definitely going to have you on his Wednesday show, coming up probably in the next couple of months. But thank you so much for being on the show. It's an honor. And I really appreciate you sharing some time with us. And we look forward to talking to you again. So Aloha from Hawaii. Let's work on that sister statehood thing between Costa Rica and Hawaii. I think it's a natural. Well, in Costa Rica, we say pura vida instead of aloha. So it's great. May I come here? May I come here, Seniors? You're welcome. Thank you.