My 8 Day Adult ASA Experience

The place where campers hang out after a long day in the sims.

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toddy71
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My 8 Day Adult ASA Experience

Post by toddy71 »

I know everyone has been asking me to post about my experience at 8 Day Adult ASA, and I am just now getting around to it. Sorry for all those that have been waiting!

Image

I've created a long blog post that is an overview of my camp time on my website: http://www.thalimer.com. There are also a ton of pictures on there as well. So instead of flooding up this post, I ask that you just head over there.

I wanted to add some things that people here would be more interested in that I didn't go into detail in my overview since general public aren't quite as geeky into Space Camp as we are here at Hab1.

12 Day Adult ASA in 2010: I overheard several times from the staff that this is quite possible BUT they have to have the bodies (and likewise, the money) to back it up. 8 Day ASA is a very special week for the staff and they look very forward to it, and if a counselor gets assigned to the group, it's quite an honorable position. They understand the geekiness and would be happy to offer a 12 day program, but they need to know that is what people would want and would attend.

Changes on the floor: You may have heard rumblings about new things going on at the floor at camp. It's true! We did get a special overview of what's coming up. While we were there, the module formerly known as Kibo was being destroyed right there on the floor, and being placed into a dumpster. It was a sad few days for a lot of the staff as that was one of the original station modules (and the one that Mary-Kate and Ashley had signed when they did their movie there). Discovery had been moved out and had a tarp thrown over it when we arrived, and by the end of the week had been moved back inside where the old modules had been on the far wall that were now gone.

So what's coming? The staff have been planning for quite some time, and despite what may happen in the Augustine Report, they've decided to go ahead and convert about 1/4 of the floor into an actual moon landscape. The old Discovery simulator will be turned into an Orion simulator that will be used during the moon missions. There will also be a moon habitat for the moon missions. There should also be some missions on the surface, but they aren't sure how that will work yet, or what they will do for the actual surface material. Eventually they will only be keeping 1 shuttle simulator for those types of missions, and moving completely over to the Orion model. They expect the moon floor and habitat to be complete and ready for shakedown by next year's Adult ASA. Of course, this is all subject to change, but they seem pretty confident, and work was moving pretty quickly while we were there.

What was special: The 8 day Adult ASA is indeed a special week. The counselors often remark that this group gets to do things that no other group of the year gets to do. This year was no exception.

We had a gentleman from Orion Propulsion come and set off an acetate rocket engine right outside the Challenger Auditorium. It was pretty awesome, bright, and loud.

Irene, everyone's favorite archivist, allowed the group into the hardware archives where we got to wander for awhile and actually touch hardware and real space suits! There were some that dated back to Mercury, but they were too high up to touch. The ones from Apollo were pretty awesome, and had to take a few snaps for my Jim Lovell space buddy at work as I found a Lovell suit. Apparently this was one of the rarest opportunities that campers have ever had.

The group was in awe when given the rundown of the Long Duration Mission that they had designed a scenario that they had NEVER done at camp before. They were right! Enterprise went up to dock on the station...we transferred to station and got a solar flare anomaly and had to evacuate to Columbus node. When we got back, we had a cracked LiOH canister and had to fashion an Apollo 13-like contraption. Then there was a meteor shower, another evacuation and upon starting the station back up again (I was Station Scientist), the Station Commander got electrocuted (therefore I was promoted), and we learned the Enterprise had been hit, had to be abandoned, and they were sending up Atlantis with a 2 person crew (2 from MOCR). Upon hearing this we had a major medical anomaly with the Enterprise Commander where she was so depressed about having to jettison the Enterprise that she tried to hijack Atlantis. The crew was able to sedate her enough, and the electrocuted team member got transferred onto Atlantis to ride home with the rest of the Enterprise crew. It was a wild LDM! As Station Commander, I chose to sleep on board Freedom as I knew it was a very rare opportunity!

Okay, so if anyone has any other questions, feel free to shoot! I had a total blast, and even though I was a rookie, the veterans really made me feel at home and happy. 8 Day ASA is NOT a vacation, but a very interactive and thinking journey. I am very glad I was able to attend.

Signing off,
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Post by pilotgirl21 »

It sounds like you had a great experience!
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Post by SpaceCanada »

Wow, sounds like an awesome week! I am glad they kept the above-and-beyond special activities for the 8-day camp. It's a week for the real die-hards.

And I see Mike, Cliff, Carol, Carolyn, and Greg were all there! (At least, in your team photo it looks like them.) That group really knows how to push Space Camp to the limits (in a good way). Yay!

PS - Did L'il Teapot make a re-appearance? (it's a rubber duck in an orbiter)

PPS - The photos on your website aren't working for me. :(
Last edited by SpaceCanada on Tue Oct 27, 2009 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by toddy71 »

SpaceCanada wrote:And I see Mike, Cliff, Carol, Carolyn, and Greg were all there! (At least, in your team photos it sure looks like them.) That group really knows how to push Space Camp to the limits (in a good way). Yay!
Yes, that's them! They do really push the limits. :)
SpaceCanada wrote:PS - Did L'il Teapot make a re-appearance? (it's a rubber duck in an orbiter)
No L'il Teapot that I saw. Bummer. :( But I was station crew most of the time. I was only in the orbiter for launch and my EVA.
SpaceCanada wrote:PPS - The photos on your website aren't working for me. :(
Uh oh! I'll have to take a peek. I also uploaded them all on to Facebook.[/quote]
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Post by pilotgirl21 »

I also couldn't view your photos on your blog site, but I was able to view them on your facebook page.
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Post by toddy71 »

Yikes! I fixed the photos. That will teach me to test my web code a little better. :) Feel free to try again!
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Post by SpaceCanada »

I see Bill was there as well. Wow. The whole repeat-crew from 2004 was there.

L'il Teapot is an inside joke from 2004. My group's rocket, L'il Teapot, went MIA during launch. Since we had an egg-stronaut passenger, and Cliff (I think) had a spacey rubber duckie he brought on board the orbiter for the LDM, we called it our reincarnation of L'il Teapot. Clearly, our rocket made it to orbit, the egg hatched, and well... this was the result:

Image
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Post by toddy71 »

Ha, that's great!

They kept telling the story of a rocket that got away and headed into the RV park. I don't know if that's the same year you were there.
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Post by SpaceCanada »

That was L'il Teapot! May she rest in peace somewhere in the foliage beyond the RV park...
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Post by Hotdog »

Wow! What an intense EDM! Would have loved to have been involved with that one!

Sad to hear Discovery is being turned into Orion. That bird is near-and-dear to my heart. At least she gets to live on in some fashion. It is hard to imagine a Space Camp without the shuttles.
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Post by Boomerang »

From what i hear they are now reconsidering keeping Discovery as a shuttle and turning Endeavour the motion based older one not the Intrepid that they renamed as Endeavour for a while into Orion instead of Discovery.
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Post by toddy71 »

I don't doubt the reconsideration of Discovery. I hear a lot of people talk so dearly about it.

And yes, it was a very wild LDM! Especially for a first timer like myself. I had the best time!

I was looking back over my posting, and realized, I know lots of things went on in MOCR too, but I didn't know a lot of them. I know they had someone have a seizure (not real, of course), and they did have to evacuate to another control room due to a tornado anomaly or something of that nature. There was constantly someone new on the microphone every time we had to communicate.

Ohhh, I almost forgot this awesome detail...the afternoon during the LDM...the station crew had an interview with a 4th grade class. It was hilarous, as the counselors spoke in little kid voices with a teacher in the background. They asked the traditional questions: how to become an astronaut...who's your hero...etc. Then came Billy. He was the inappropriate kid, haha. He was snickering the whole time because he wanted to know "what happens when you fart in space?" The teacher began immediately yelling at him. It was pretty funny, as we only had audio and could only discern what was going on the whole time. Afterwards, the counselors said it was one of the best interviews they had seen and that it really looked like the interviews they have on the shuttle and station where we all passed the microphone around and answered questions. I can't wait to see the DVD.
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Post by Boomerang »

One reason i believe so many people have strong feelings for Discovery is i believe it's the oldest shuttle sim at camp. I know it goes back to sometime in the 80's. I have seen pictutres from 1985 where it is ther along with Columbia which was removed in 2002 a few months before the accident. Atlantis and Enterprise came later i'd guess around 86 or 87 as camp simulators. I know Atlantis was used as the shuttle cockpit for the space scenes in the movie space camp and i believe Enterprise's cargo bay was also used for the movie which was filmed in 85 though i dont believe either Atlantis or Enterprise was in the original bubble training center. i would guess they came into use by 1987 when the new training center opened. I believe Endeavour was brought in around 1991 i know it was there when i went to camp that yearbut was still new. Intrepid came in sometime in the year or so before Columbia was removed.
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Post by Hotdog »

Boomerang, you are dead-on with the timeframes of the shuttle sims. Columbia and Discovery were the two original sims from the pre-movie days. Atlantis and Enterprise both 1987 with new training center and Endeavour 1991.
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Sound's familiar

Post by rkolker »

The mission sounds like they dug up some of the old notes from when we (Enterprise Team) prototyped the new advanced adult academy (talk to Mike Flachbart about that week) with a 24 hour sim. There was an accident aboard the orbiter where a PAM module exploded after deploy. Tiles were damaged and connectivity to the aft of the orbiter was lost. EVAs had to be planned and executed to repair the tiles and connectivity to the OMS and rear RCS.

Because of the damage, it was decided to launch a second mission to retrieve all the crew except the commander and pilot, who would take the risk to fly the reentry. That mission had to be planned and executed by a "tiger team" to meet a specific launch window for rendezvous. Rendezvous and prox-ops calculated and executed, and a second FCR brought up to handle the two simultaneous missions and reentries.

We trained that week solely from actual NASA 2102 training documents and prepared software to calculate Hohmann transfer and prox ops burns, as well as using STSORBIT to track the shuttles and calculate LOS and AOS times as well as launch windows and reentries.

By the end of the 24 hours we were all exhaused, but we got both orbiters home. With everything that happened, except for the first few hours, nobody had gotten any sleep, crewing two orbiters and two FCRS and olanning a mission "on the fly".
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Post by SpaceCanada »

That also sounds similar to an episode of 'The Cape' I watched today... only there they crashed the orbiter into the MИP (Mir) and damaged some nose tiles. :) Sounds fun!
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