Before the Hab

What Space Camp forum would be complete without a place to talk about one of the best/worst movies of all time, SpaceCamp, as well as all Space Camp references in pop culture.

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Post by Boomerang »

I do remember the store on the first floor of hab 1 bought a few items there over the years. Ids that still there? didnt make it over to the hab when i was there in 05 so i don't know.
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Post by des »

I *definitely* remember the astronauts hanging from the ceilign and have a neat photo of it, somewhere. The other thing, I need to look for these, but I have quite a cool photo of looking outside from the Hab at the red planet (Huntsville :-)).

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Also, if I recall correctly, in 1998 there were some floating EVA astronauts hanging from the ceiling of Hab I. They weren't there in 1999 or 2004. Does anyone else remember this?
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Post by monkeynautt »

LB206 wrote:I do remember the store on the first floor of hab 1 bought a few items there over the years. Ids that still there? didnt make it over to the hab when i was there in 05 so i don't know.
Was still there in 2004, although it wasn't open everyday, just check-in and grad days.
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Post by Hotdog »

yeah the EVA astronauts were there from the beginning as I recall. wow, i had totally forgotten about that! I always thought that was a nice touch. Merchandise for sale on the main floor of Hab I was also part of the setup in the early days.

The trailers with computer labs/lecture rooms did not come into play until 1993-1994 (probably about the same time they would have replaced the old Macs on the Hab 1 main floor).

Other things I now recall --

there was a beach volleyball court between the Pathfinder and Hab II when i was there in '92.

somewhere up on the same level as the top of the UAT, there was an inflatable planetarium where Campers were treated to a starshow and crash course in constellations. This was also 1991 and 1992. From the descriptions here, I'd guess this was located where the computer lab is now ??

When i come back to tour the grounds this summer, it will be interesting to place all of these changes!
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Post by Boomerang »

I doubt the inflatable planetarium was in the same place as this lab i dont think there would be enough room. The lab near the UAT was kind of cramped though there were larger rooms such as where the VR mars trovers later were and i remember in 1993 there was another larger room where we did a clean room thing building a sattelite. I do remember using an inflatable planetarium in 93 though but it was set up on the first floor of Hab 1.
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Post by SpaceCanada »

If I recall correctly, some of the youth ASA 8-day programmes used the inflatable planetarium in 2004.

The volleyball court near Hab II is still there. We used it in 1999 and I saw it there in 2004.

I think the floating astronauts in Hab I were removed by 1999. I don't know why, but I wish they would put them back up.
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Post by gt0163c »

Hotdog wrote:The trailers with computer labs/lecture rooms did not come into play until 1993-1994 (probably about the same time they would have replaced the old Macs on the Hab 1 main floor).
I remember the trailers from at last '91 and possibly '92. I did ASA both those years and remember having lectures at least in '91.
Hotdog wrote:there was a beach volleyball court between the Pathfinder and Hab II when i was there in '92.
I remember that from '91. We had PT each morning of ASA that year. The last few days my team played volleyball instead of doing all the PT exercises.
No PT in '92.
Hotdog wrote:somewhere up on the same level as the top of the UAT, there was an inflatable planetarium where Campers were treated to a starshow and crash course in constellations. This was also 1991 and 1992. From the descriptions here, I'd guess this was located where the computer lab is now ??
I remember the inflatable planetarium on the ground floor of Hab I at least one year I was there (might have been when I did SA in '89.).
I don't remember it ever being up at the top of the UAT area.

Hotdog wrote:When i come back to tour the grounds this summer, it will be interesting to place all of these changes!
I'm looking forward to seeing all the changes (and trying to figure out which is stuff I just don't remember) when I do adult ASA this September Anyone else going then?
It's been 15 years since I was last there (wow, that makes me feel really old).
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Post by Boomerang »

I remember doing PT one time in all my trips to camp that was in 1993 when one morning with no warning they made all the academy level 1 teams do PT first thing in the morning infact i think they made us get up early for it. We were not real happy about it. But that workout was nothing to the marine work outs i got in JROTC in high school
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Post by CastAway »

We did use the inflatable planetarium the last time I was there... I think summer 2005.
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Post by ApolloXI »

The last times I was there the Hab2 computers where used mainly for time killers. We had slotted times for space computer software use but many of the counselors didn't care what we did, plus much of the software was outdated or bad.
The Hab1 gift shop was open off and on the last time I was there. I remember the day after check in buying a water bottle because of the Alabama heat and humidity.
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Post by ApolloXI »

If anybody has the new poster which I picked up today they have picture of the old TCF on the current HAB II building. It is located on the row on the x-axis and 3 up on the y-axis.
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Post by CastAway »

Wait... what poster?
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Post by Mercergl »

The inflatable planetarium is still used, but they put it in the astrotrek building
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Post by Richasi »

gt0163c wrote:I remember the trailers from at last '91 and possibly '92. I did ASA both those years and remember having lectures at least in '91.
We Space Campers were introduced to SpaceMail in those trailers on Apple ][e's I think in 1989. They might have been Macs, though. I forget.

In 1991, Space Academy, Level I campers picked up their shirts and stuff in one of those trailers.
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"Good" old days

Post by rkolker »

To go back to the original topic, I was there at one of the prototype adult sessions while they were filming Space Camp, so I know exactly what condition everything was in back then.

As others have mentioned, there was no training floor as it exists today. There was just "the bubble" with trainers upstairs and dorms in the basement. There was no Hab. For the movie, they took part of the cafeteria and turned it into a "dorm", but real campers never slept there. The training floor had one (motion based) shuttle cockpit, a spacelab and space station, one mission control, and some limited space for EVAs in which you repaired the Hubble, and built a tetrahedron while in the 5DFs and an MMU on the end of the arm.

They kept us up my first night there shooting the "sneaking into the training center" scene, but made up for it by inviting us to the cast party.
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Re: "Good" old days

Post by Jay Chladek »

Three years later and I thought I would add to the conversation since my own knowledge dates back to early 1985 and things were about the same as when rkolker went through one of the early adult sessions.
rkolker wrote:To go back to the original topic, I was there at one of the prototype adult sessions while they were filming Space Camp, so I know exactly what condition everything was in back then.

As others have mentioned, there was no training floor as it exists today. There was just "the bubble" with trainers upstairs and dorms in the basement. There was no Hab. For the movie, they took part of the cafeteria and turned it into a "dorm", but real campers never slept there. The training floor had one (motion based) shuttle cockpit, a spacelab and space station, one mission control, and some limited space for EVAs in which you repaired the Hubble, and built a tetrahedron while in the 5DFs and an MMU on the end of the arm.

They kept us up my first night there shooting the "sneaking into the training center" scene, but made up for it by inviting us to the cast party.
As you watch the movie and hear Andi giving her explanation of things (and you see "The Right Stuff" simulator and the crane arm) you are in the double section of the dome (the dome was a double section and a single one). The last page of the Winter 1985 Space Camp News shows an overhead map of the whole facility and you can make out two and one dome shape in its location:

http://www.hab1.com/2004/05/05/habfiles ... ing-yet/6/

Pretty much any of the camp scenes where you look up and saw a white ceiling were the domes. If you've ever been in them once, you know what to look for.

The level one camp simulators occupied the single dome area, along with the 5DF air cushioned unit that Tish moved on (that was a pretty uncomfortable contraption), the Multi Axis Trainer and the 1/6th gravity section. The MAT was modified for the film and I believe why they cut out a notch and stuck a joystick on it was it also doubled as a camera mount for the closeups of Lea Thompson in it. She talked about it on an episode of David Letterman once, ironically the night after Ed Buckbee brought the MAT in for Dave to try. She said it was a little scarey to have this big film camera bolted to the MAT just inches in front of her face (I can imagine as you don't want it breaking lose).

One of the other issues of Space Camp News (Spring 1986 I believe) explained where they filmed certain scenes as well for those who had been to Camp to look for. The cafeteria (which to my knowledge was always called "The Lunch Pad" back then as there was no outdoor section to it) was indeed the dorms used in the film. It was used for both the boys and girls dorms, just filmed on different nights with slight redressing. The most distinctive feature were those glass doors for entry and exit and you ended up at the edge of the rocket park, overlooking the Saturn 1 (which doubled as a shaded pavillion area). The Lunch Pad was an interesting place as we had the food tables occupying the floor. We got our food from a rotating conveyor belt that worked almost like a mini-baggage conveyor at an airport. I have NO idea if they had to move that thing out during filming and set redress, but I'll bet it was a PAIN!

The place where the campers picked up their badges in the film was I believe the lobby to the "Omnimax" dome (i.e. IMAX theater, but they called it Omnimax since it was a dome projection screen and not a flat one like most Imax theaters). As a little side story, I remember when they played "Hail Columbia" for us campers in 1985. On Columbia's launch, my seat literally SHOOK!!!! It was exciting and terrifying at the same time! But it is the closest thing I got to a real shuttle launch (I've seen three up close).

I believe the outside of the lobby area near the Omnimax dome was also where they filmed the parking lot scenes since it sort of faced near the rocket park. Pretty much it was the USSRC standing in for the camp itself for those exterior scenes. The times they used the camp domes proper were for the simulators (Mission Control, the shuttle, the "RMS arm" which had Max strapped into the MMU (a low tech arm, but it worked) and the quiet area where Max rebuild's Jinx. I remember those cases housing the space suits rather well.

Another scene filmed in the domes was a very short bit (during Andi's voice over as they showed the condensed training) where one of the campers was trying on an Apollo space suit in an enclosed area and Andi and the others were trying to get it on him as Tom Skeritt looks on. That was a unique thing from Level 2 back then as one of the campers with a build that most closely approximated the astronaut whom the suit was fitted for got to put on the suit (an actual Apollo training suit) and five other campers helped him in that process (wearing bunny suits). He got it put on the whole way, down to the bubble helmet with the air conditioner/regulator going to keep him ventilated. The suit and its regulator was kept in an isolated "clean room" as it were. I asked one of the counsellors who's suit it was and he said he couldn't reveal that. I figure it was probably Pete Conrad's since he was one of the shorter astronauts and he had done a lot of training at Marshall during the Skylab days.

Another feature of the 1985 camp I can remember (but which was never shown in the film) was a one level structure behind the domes which housed a class room area where we did our schooling and mission de-briefings. It was next to a storage shed the counsellors used.

As for the computers, we used the PLATO ones when I went, but just for the quiz. There was a class room set up with them for the quiz that we were given (which our mission assignments were based on). I don't know what architecture they were based on, but they had touch screen monitors. So you touched the screen to give your answer on the multiple choice questionare. They paired us up into two person teams. The guy I did it with got shuttle pilot on one of his missions and I got Flight Director for the other (we did pretty good with it I guess). As I recall, the PLATOs were around for the original level one camp when it opened in 1982. One of the PLATOs was integral to the Level 1 camp simulator they used (Columbia I believe it was) as it sort of acted as the GPC for that simulator. I gather that by 1985, they were beginning to phase it out and they built a new level 1 simulator in 1986 (not sure what they used in it for the computer).

As for the mission control computers, I have a vague recollection that one of them "may" have been a Commodore 64. I believe it was the one used to generate the mission time clock on the big screen. As flight director, my station was right next to the sim supervisor's, so I had a chance to watch the wizard do things from "behind the curtain" as it were. To my knowledge though, none of the mission control computers had to ability to power down the shuttle though ("killing power sir!"). ;)
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Post by Boomerang »

Believe it or not the Domes you remember are still there. They are now dpown at the Aviation Challenge lake though they have seen better days.
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Post by Jay Chladek »

I read some of the Aviation Challenge postings. I remember seeing the domes in an Aviation Challenge commercial from sometime in the mid 1990s. When it first came on, I said "Hey, those domes look familiar" but didn't put two and two together that they were talking about a new part of Space Camp until right at the very end of the commercial. So much for a "temporary" set of domes. They certainly got their money's worth out of them.

I briefly stopped by USSRC back in July on my drive back from KSC after STS-135's liftoff, but I arrived too late in the day to attend the museum. I just stood outside the gate near Hab 2 (I think, big silver building with cylinders on it) for a few minutes and took in a view of the Saturn 1, Saturn V replica and the Pathfinder. My next day in town was spent with a friend who worked at Marshall as he got me a pass on base. So after we ate some lunch, he took me to check out the old F-1 and J-2 engine test stands (shuttle MPTA-98 is parked in front of the J-2 stand). I only had a few hours in town before I had to get back on the road, so my time was tied up with that visit.

While it would be nice if Space Camp could have tours of Marshall again, I don't know if there is really all that much to see there anymore outside of the payload mission control center. The J-2 test stand is pretty much "abandon in place" these days as it hasn't been used for years. The F-1 stand was refurbished for testing of engines related to the Ares program (I went to the top of it), but with Ares cancelled, who knows if it will ever get used for rocket engine development again or not. Still, Marshall does have MPTA-98 and a Saturn 1 Block 1 stage sitting on its side still, plus the Block 1 erected vertical and the SSME in front of the main headquarters building.

NEXT TIME I get back to Huntsville though, I am going to try to check out the old place and take in the view, even if only for a little while.
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Post by street »

Reviving the Marshall tours is something Dr Barnhardt is working on. I'm looking forward to that, since I came on board after 2001. :cry:
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