The HabForum

Well guys its been a long trip buit i made it home. All i can say is flying in a wheel chair ios an intresting tiring and sometimes frustrating experiance especuially when all your aircraft only have 50 seats onboard. But anyway onto the good stuff.

Well as i've mentioned before i was there primarily for an educator confrence. The idea behind it is we all simulate variopus disabilities and test out new NASA Educational products to see bow they can be improved. We also had several guest speakers on various subjects.

The best speaker we had and the one most here would recognise is Mike Kersjas the author of A Smile As Big as the Moon. I know many of you have read it. He talked about the book as well as his group Space is Special that he founded. He also gave us an update on the movie. A[parently he got out of the contract with Bruckheimer and Disney in favor of one with Warner Brothers. Aparently Bruckheimer was taking it in directions he didnt like. He hopes it will be done within the next 2 years. He also gave updates on some of the students in the book and told a few other stories not in the book.

Most days were occupied by speakers and testing out new products. At but Tuesday night Jason callsign and hab 1 name Who gave me and a colleague a tour of the remodeled Space Camp TCF and Aviation challenge. I want to say thanks to him it was a great tour and wow that place has changed. unfortunately i lost my camera at some point that night too with over 100 pictures on it. But my colleague took some great ones as well and ill post them as soon as i get copies.

One cool thing we did was the first day we went to the Astrotrek building and used the 1/6th chair, 5DF's, and MAT's. We were supose to do Area 51 that day but the 110 degree heat index changed the plans to the astrotrek building and a museum scavenger hunt. On thursday after we were done with our last session we had lunch with the educators from the International Space Camp. And i spent some more time in the museum and rocket park. I alkso realised that the week out group was actually a Coorporate Space Camp group. Corporate has no set program its what the group wants so its not like the ussual camp so the experiance described above was the extrent of my camp experiance this time but i will add the corporate camp to mky list.

Wednesday we also visited Marshall. I saw things id never seen with camp. We visited the space store at marsghall first. Spent way too much money. But i did get a new NASA bag a business portfolio, MSFC polo and t shirt and some patches. Then we went and saw several of the test stands including the ones for the Saturn 1/1B, Saturn V, Redstone and the vibration test facility. Also saw a foam test conducted as well. We then went and paid a quick visit to the marshall rocket park. Then we went to the payload ooperations center and visited the Payload Operations Control Rooms for both the shuttle and ISS. I have a picture of me in the SSME console headset on with a screen full of data in the shuttle payload operations cpntrol center. Ok stop drooling now.

Other things i forgot to cover well i did spend some money in the space and rocket center gift shop got one of the royal blue avaiator jackets for half price thanks to a coupon that had been in the paper, a NASA mug, and sopme space and space camp related pins as well. Also at the international space camp luncheon i met Konrad Dandenberg one of Vonbrauns original team. His wife Jackie had actually conducted the bus tour i took at ASA back in 98.

Well i will post pictures on the hab 1 member photo website as soon as i get the copies from my coleague probably early next week. man it was a great week i miss the place already.

I should also mention while i was down there besides Who i also ran into Soccer, and Spacecampaddict. Seems like there was someone else from hab1 also cant remember who it was though. Maybe Who can tell me if he remembers. Also i'd love some comments or anything seems peiople have been reading but bot saying anything.

Sounds like you had an awesome time - I would love to go to Marshall! Looking forward to the pics!

Well hopefully i will get a cd with the pictures on it tommorow and if i do i will post them then. If i don't get them tommorow it will probably be next week before i do but i will post them as soon as i can.

I think you also ran into me; I was running the MAT that day for Corporate Camp. I had the first MAT; a black girl named Mellonie had the second one.
I remember it because I was about to sign the spazz book and go "home" to my room in the Hab after my Parent Child team graduated when Paula stopped me and said, "You're scheduled 'til 3. Go help in the Astrotrek building, they have an hour to do ALL the sims."
Crazy kids.
If you were part of that group, I might have met you, otherwise I am thinking of someone else.

Well i believe i saw you atleast. I wasnt able to do the sims because i'm not physicly able t6o get into them beibng in a wheel chair. But if you saw a guy in a wheel chair going around taking pictures that was me.

speaking of pictures... any updates???

(I'm such a nag! Reason: thinking of Space Camp makes me happy and distracts me from my wedding disasters.)

Well unfortunately since my camera was lost during the rip i have to wait to get phoitos from a colleague. I should have them friday and i'll try to post them this weekend and will be getting some of the confrence itself in a few weeks on a cd from SERCH.

I hate it when inanimate things grow legs and sneak away... I would die (or come close to dying) if I lost my camera!

No rush for the pictures. I am just anxious to see them. For now, I'll just browse around some other Hab1 photos and some I have on my computer.

So what else about this conference of yours? What types of NASA educator products did you get to test out? What do you think of the changes they have made to Space Camp since you were there last? Did you get to do any of the simulators? Did you learn anything from the International Space Camp teachers?

I am so insanely jealous that you got to go to Marshall Space Flight Center - again! Quite the experience. I am totally drooling! You... in the control room with a headset on! You must post that picture! Wow!

Sounds like a wonderful and amazing trip! Can't wait to hear more...

Well lets see. As far as the educational products we tested a few. The first was a simple classification activity about Saturn's moons. Basicly you are given info on Saturns major moons and are supose to classify them into categories you get to pick the category. This seems simple but it was geared for elementary school kids. It was put together by someone from JPL who also came and gave a great talk on Cassinni and Saturn.
We also tested out several activities relating to the total solar eclipse next year. nfortunately its not visible in this country but each grpoup had diffren5 activities so its hard to describe. It was also hard to describe because i was simulating glaucoma and could only see diffrences in light and dark and only through 1 eye.
We also did one on the transit of Venus where we were given several materials and a couple of diffrent light bulbs and asked to model a transit after listening to a talk on the subject. This was intresting for me since i simulated impaired vision for this one and everything was very dark to me with the goggles on.
We also tested out The Black Hole Explorer Game a fun activity that mixed learning about black holes into a game.
There was one other and now i dont remember exactly what it was but i know it had something to do with looking for life beyond earth and looking for habitabble planets.
I'll be getting a cd soon with all the infor on it i'll try to post more then about it.
As for the simulators didnt really get to do any but did get a look inside the remodeled training center and over at AC. Honestly as cool as the space station stuff is the tcf just looks too crowded now. I didnt like that the only good view of the entire tcf you can get now is at the top of the UAt but i did go up there too and got some pictures. But at the same time i guess it was time for Space Camp to change with NASA and move onto ISS stuff.I personally still liked having everything on the training center floor more like it is in houston and the Astro Trek building seems overly large for the few things that are in there.

The Aviation challenge sims which are all new since i was there look awesome wish we had had them back in 96. And the spec ops stuff at Ac looks cool but still dont see much point in having it in an aviation program. My friend who is older and a parent of 6 pointed out if alot of parents knew more about the spec ops stuff they probably wouldnt aprove of it. she didnt like the fact it looked like they were being trained toi be commandos and were carrying what appeared to be airsoft or some other type of gun. Personaly i would have loved it but it was intresting to hear a parents point of view on it.

As far as the international space campteachers i sat with a woman from Austria and i forget where the other gentleman was from. But what was even cooler than that was i sat with Konrad Dandenberg a member of VonBrauns team. I had actually met his wife back in 98 when she was a bus tour driver on the marshall bus tour. I'd actually talked to her online alot recenty but it was the first time i'd seen her since 98.

The marshall tour was great i loved every second of it including the foam test we saw and ofcourse the mission control console.I also spent way too much money at the Marshall employee shop atleast it was tax free there. Then turned around and spent more the next day at the space and rocket center gift shop. But i finaly got one of the blue flught jackets i've been wanting and for half price thanks to a coupon in the huntsville paper.

One thing that dissapointed me was the shape the rocket park was in. I mean the Saturn V was looking awful. I am glad to see its beinf restored but i couldnt believe the shape its been allowed to get in. And it wasnt the only rocket several were in bad shape especialy the army ones. And the signs in the park all needed replacing. The sidewalks could also use some work some spaces were rough for a wheel chair visitor and i'd forgotten how steap some areas are . Also Pathfinder loojs like it needs restoration abiout as badly as the Saturn V does it was filthy and needs some work by the looks of it. Also the Saturn V replica which was the first time i'd seen it in person looked so great. The museum still looks grewat b8t they need to make some upstairs areas accessable because not all of them are.

Space camp appeared to be more accessable but didnt get a look at all of it because it was rather busy with campers at the time so didnt get to see everything i would have liked to. The new MOCR's i saw looked great.

I didnt get to see inside the hab so cant really speak about it.

One cool thing is that the director of space camp for the visualy impaired invited us to come back and help improve that camp as well as the one for the hearing impaired. Don't know when or if that will happen but it would be cool.

Overall it was a totaly awesome trip and i loved every minute of it except for having to leave. And spending the extra night in huntsville made it worse since we stayed at the airport hotel and wasnt by the space and rocket center anymore but yet were still so close.

Ok just so you know i have put up the first photo from the confrence on the hab 1 members photo page. Only 1 so far that someone sent me. More will come this weekend i hope. Comments are always welcome.

Hey Jason. Thanks for posting the photo. I think Jackie did my Marshall bus tour in 1998 also. What a great trip down memory lane...

Well looks like it may be next week now for the pictures the friend never got them burned on a cd for me. She said shed either email them this weekend orget me the cd by wednesday of next week. So i'll get them up as soon as ican. And more wuill come on another cd sometime in the near future from the confrence people.

No worries... I am the queen of delays... just look at how long it has been since my last trip to Space Camp (almost a year) and I still have not finished my scrapbooks! I will post pictures when I am finished though... eventually...

Take your time and have a great week ahead!