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Wow 13 years ago already

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 11:12 am
by Boomerang
Hey guys i bumped this topic up since my 13th anniversary of y space academy trip starts today. Also minor edits to update the number of years are included.

Well here it is the start of my 13 year anniversary at Space Academy Level 1 and so today begins my day by day account of the week starting with leaving for camp and ending with the return home. I welcome any comments or feedback in the days to come.

Well this trip got off to a rough start. The night before i left my left knee started to really hurt all night long and i got verry little sleep. I had sprained it about a month early in a karate training camp. So for most of that day i was in alot of pain and walking with a slight limp. This worried me since i knew i'd have to go through the Atlanta airport which i'm sure most of you know is huge. Thankfully i was flying as an unacompanied minor that year so i didnt have to worry about getting to the next gate i had help. I flew out of Norfolk VA around noon on Delta Airlines going to Atlanta. It was a little under 2 hour trip. In atlanta i had a very atracktive flight attendant take me to my next gate thankfully for the sake of my knee we took one of those electric carts. It was about a 45 minute wait before my next plane left for Huntsville. So i sat there and talked with some other people going to space camp one of which i later learned was on my team. After the quick hop to huntsville we had to circle for a while because of a thunderstorm on the ground but we eventually landed and were met by the space camp employee. As most of you have done this beforte its about the same we went to the space camp room where he checked off our names collected our tickets and got our name tags. Then we went and got our bags from the baggage claim and ran to the bus since it was still raining.

We got to camp got our linnens went up and made our beds and put our stuff in our room again thankfully for my knee i got the bottom bunk in our room. We then went over the cafeteria where i met my night counselor Liz and my team. The first big diffrence that struck me about Space Academy Level 1 was the size of our team 20 people instead of 12 like we had had at space camp. At dinner i also got a suprise when i saw my counselor from 91 in the cafeteria and he actually remembered me after nearly 2 years. After dinner we had our first lecture on space history and took a quick quiz on our space knowledge to help determine our mission positions for our two missions that week. Then we went and saw the Imax Movie Speed. Afterwards we took time for mission patch design before finnaly going to bed which i welcomed after getting no sleep the night before. Well thats the end of Day 1 at Space Academy level 1 more to come in the week to come.

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 2:34 pm
by Boomerang
Ok well i need to make a couple of corrections to the earlier post. I took a look at my journal in my log book and noticed some things i'd gotten worng. First i left norfilk around 1 not 12 and i realised that the first lecture wasnt on space history it was on the shuttle and its systems as well as the diffrent positions we could have on the shutle, station, or mocr for both shuttle missions there were slight diffrences between the positions for Endeavour and Discovery all of which were covered in that briefing. The mission profiles for the two missions were also covered. I was right about the quiz though it was on gneral space knowledge and at the end we were asked to list our 3 top choices of mission positions atleast one of which had to be in mocr. I listed Commander, mission specialist, or flight director.

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 4:20 pm
by monkeynautt
Were you in hab 1 or hab 2?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 5:59 pm
by Boomerang
We were in hab 1 camp is the only one who uses hab 2. I was justlucky one of the two beds left when i got to my room was the only bottom bunk.

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 8:01 pm
by monkeynautt
I just wasn't sure if back then academy was in hab 1. When was the new hab built?

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 8:37 pm
by Boomerang
Well keep in mind Hab 1 is the older of the two habs. From what i can tell looking on Richasi's website at the old space camp brochures the first hint that there was a hab 2 was in 1990 when they stopped saying some campers may be housed at the marriot and said that housing was acording to program needs. I know Richasi said he stayed in hab 1 at camp in 89 so obviously the hab 2 wasnt yet built. The first picture actually showing hab 2 is an aerial shot in the 91 brochure and i know it was ther then because thats where i stayed as a camper in 91. Maybe Richasi can pin it down more sometime but thats the best i could come up with.

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 9:07 pm
by Vincent
No, no...what's now Hab 2 used to be Hab1.

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 9:54 pm
by Boomerang
Well vincent i hate to prove you wrong but a picture from the 1989 space camp brochure clearly shows Hab 1 in place and behind it is still the dome that use to serve as the training center before it was moved to its current location. You can see it on Richasi's website youll find the link below. The domw may have been serving some purpose still at thaty point i dont really know but its clearly not Hab 2. http://www.azlance.com/~richasi/SpaceLi ... ppl-26.jpg

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 10:28 pm
by Vincent
heh...possibly...I'll have to go look...actually though, right after I posted it, I had that thought, so you're probably right...quite right, actually.

Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2003 11:53 pm
by Boomerang
Well i had to go back and look myself to find it. Althouygh from the old promotional video and where they show the old dorm it looks like even though hab 2 is newer they appear to have inherited the old bunk beds from the original sleeping area wherever that was. Anyway the main reason i'm posting right now is to let you know my day two account may not come until tommorow late afternoon as i'll be at the space museum till 4:30 and may not get a chance to make a post before i leave in the morning so just be patient it will eventually come. Also thanks everyone for questions and comments this is what i hoped to generate the last time i did this but it never really happened.

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2003 4:53 pm
by Boomerang
Well the first full day of camp was off to a much better start. I woke up and my knee was no longer in pain. Not to mention it just felt great to be back at space camp again. Just like my trip 2 years earlierthe first day was team picture day so we all wore our team shirts. Also that morning i found out the second big diffrence at Academy Level 1. I have mentioned earlier that the team was much bigger than it had been at camp well i found out the reason was each team was divided up into two smaller groups alpha and bravo. I was on the TRW Bravo team suprisingly the two groupd did verry little together during the week other than eating together and our shuttle missions.

That day we also found out our positions for the Endeavour mission i got Commander which is the main position i wanted although i had wanted to be commander on discovery because it has the space lab module and tha remote manipulator arm. We also had the mission practice for the endeavour mission. I have to say i was a bit overwhelmed when i saw the endeavour cockpit because it was much more complete than columbia had been 2 years earlier. Later in the day we went to the pool at the university of Huntsville for water training that included swimming through hula hoops underwater, assembling a cube under water, and life raft training. That night we did the SSMT which some of you may remember but i believe the last time i was there in 98 i didnt see it any longer. For those of you who dont know its essenialy a chair inside of a cylinder it has hand grips and you can pull yourself or walk yourself or a combination of the two completely around it kind of like 2001 a space odyssey similar idea anyway. We also had lessons on the history of space flight as well as saw the Imax movie Hail Columbia.

To be honest i'm sure there is probably more we did but thats all i can remember from a combination of reading my old log book and watching my old video. Unfortunately i didnt keep as detailed a record in my log book as i wish i had. More to come in the next few days. As always comments questions and suggestions are welcome.

Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2003 4:57 pm
by Boomerang
Oh one thing i forgot. In day 1 i mentioned my night counselor Liz but i forgot to name my day counselor in day 2 it was Barry better known as B-man. He was a great counselor and alot of fun. Infact i found him on AOL a couple of years ago and still talk to him ocasionaly.

Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2003 11:39 am
by Boomerang
Well another day and more to write about. It was tuesday and the first mision day. I finnaly got to command the space shuttle. Well obviously first thing i did when i got up was put on my flight suit which i was only one of 2 people on the team that had one. Unfortunately i had to wear it all day since i wouldnt get a chance to put it on later.

Early on in the day we did the 5DF and manned maneuvering pod. I don't know how many of you would even remember the manned maneuvering pod because its no longer there. For thos of you who never got to do it it was kind of a forunner of space shot except on a smaller scale. You climbed into a big metal sphere inside a clear tube. The person running it strapped you in and closed the hatch on the ball. They then closed the tube and the sphere would shoot to the top. Like space shot at the top youd feel a few seconds of weightlessness. They would do that several times for each person.

The shuttle mission was that afternoon. The missions at academy arent as involved as the ones at ASA but you do still have anomolies. But at academy all anomolies are ones that can be solved by checklists in either the orbiter or mocr. One thing i loved about Endeavour was that the cockpit would tilt back for launch. After 2 hours the mission was over. The counselor complimented our team on our professionalism especially the cockpit crew. However and i'm just guessing but it seems the space station crew killed any chance of winning best mission when they didnt pay attention to CO2 levels and died. Even i remember emphasis put on changing the air scrubbers in the station but aparently everyone in there forgot. And worse yet the station commander didnt have a clue what was going on. You can see on the team video that when they find out they just died the whole station crew starts acting like they died but the station commander is just sitting there looking at his console then looks around clueless as to what happened. Ofcourse like at ASA they had to bring the crew back to life so we could dock with them and we did that as well as deployed our sattelite, acomplished our EVA and expirements and returned safely.

Well thats all the info i have from my log book for tuesday and from memory that i have so there will be more tommorow. As always questions and comments are welcomed.

Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2003 5:37 pm
by Boomerang
Well continuing my streak of forgetting something every day so far i forgot something again. That tuesday night we ended the day by watching The Dream is Alive one of my all time favorite Imax movies. I also should have said this was one of the few days where the two halves of the team did something together that being our mission. I know the shuttle crew had 3 people from TRW Alpha and then 3 of us from TRW bravo dont know that the breakdown of the other numbers were. And now looking back on it it looks to me like the 2 main positions the pilot and commander on both missions were from the same half of the team so i guess thats so both halves were represented. For Endeavour the pilot and i were both from TRW bravo and for discovery the commander and pilot would both be from TRW Alpha.

Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2003 11:55 pm
by Richasi
thaty point i dont really know but its clearly not Hab 2. http://www.azlance.com/~richasi/SpaceLi ... ppl-26.jpg[/quote]

You know, I always assumed that was Hab 2 under that... if you follow the contour of the building underneath it kinda looks like Hab 2. Only, by the time I got there that covering wasn't there (if it had been). I know that picture probably was taken in 1988 so... that cover wasn't there when I went to camp in 1989. I never stayed in that hab. Both times I was in Hab 1.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 12:03 am
by Boomerang
Well to me it still looks like the original training center which was over in that area. It appears to be orange in color and more of a dome shape than hab 2 which is what the original training center looked like in the old promotional video i have.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 10:20 am
by Boomerang
Well here it is another day. It was wednesday at camp the halfway point in the week one mission down one mission to go.

This day started off diffrent when we went downstairs to meet out day counselor that morning we were told he wouldnt be there that day. Although i don't remember the reason. So instead we spent the whole day with the alpha half of our team. Unfortunately looking back on it this didnt really do anything to help make the two halves of the team closer together. It also slowed alot of stuff down because of the number of people involved. Plus being with the counselors of the alpha section of the team they let there half of the team do everything first, Although in some cases it was a necesity for one half or the other to go first because we were a video team and each half of the tream had a seperate video.

I can only remember a couple of the actual activities that day. We went on the 1/6th chair, And we did the clean room which is where you learn about then assemble a sattelite mockup. We also had a lecture on astronomy by Dr. Vonteisenhausen (thats probably nowhere near the right spelling but most of you know who he is). I believe we also visited Marshall either that day or the next bu i'm not sure.

We also found out our mission positions for the Discovery mission and had our mission practice. I was dissapointed after scoring so high on that general space knowledge test i didnt get any of the positions i had wanted. Instead i got the spacecraft systems officer position in MOCR which i realised later was actually very important but i still didnt like it. The day ended with seeing our last imax film blue Planet. Tommorow would be our second shuttle mission and the last full day at camp before gradfuation day on friday.

Dr. Von T

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 11:49 am
by Benji
That's interesting, I didn't meet Dr. Von T until my most recent trip (ASA). I'd been in Academy several times before.

Oh, and it's spelled von Tiesenhausen. You got it very close, though. Closer than I could have gotten it.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 5:25 pm
by Boomerang
Well i only met him the one time. Although it kind of suprised me that his lecture was on astronomy not history or rocketry or something along those lines.

Re: Dr. Von T

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2003 7:20 pm
by LaRsOnAtRiXkIx
Benji wrote:That's interesting, I didn't meet Dr. Von T until my most recent trip (ASA). I'd been in Academy several times before.

Oh, and it's spelled von Tiesenhausen. You got it very close, though. Closer than I could have gotten it.
i remember meeting him when i went to academy, and he was there again when i was just at asa. but he didnt talk for as long when i was in academy as he did at asa. i could not stay awake when he was talking this year, i think because it was 2 hours long, they did give us a little break though, and i was exhausted as it was late in the day and week, and because it was REALLY cold in the room it was in, and cold makes me sleep. lol.