The HabForum

As of next year SA will only offer 8 day programs. I wonder why.

They can't fill them?
I'm thinking there is a big down turn in interest in space, esp spending any serious amount of time or money on it. Of course this has been going on for years. I have been so surprised the low interest in my own little camp with a very high tech flight simulator; rocket launches, etc.

--des

DanM wrote:As of next year SA will only offer 8 day programs. I wonder why.

Filling the sessions doesn't seem to be a problem. When we were down there for alumni camp, there were 2 ASA 13 day teams and 2 M3 13 day teams. The problem may be that the manpower it takes to put these sessions on is too much and the cost is greater than the sessions bring in.

The longest program academy offers is 8 days. The advanced 12 day is being dropped because its costing more than its making from what i understand.

maybe the 12 day program could still exist, but only 2-3 weeks out of the year for all us die-hards?

Although there was a time I would have loved as many days as possible, 8 days is about all that is practical for me now. A week off of work (Saturday to Saturday) is possible once you're in the workforce. More than that is tough.

That being said, if they aren't making money on 12 day, raise the price and see what happens.

I think it's more trying to find enough time in the sims and enough councilor hours to make it work than the dollars.

rkolker wrote:That being said, if they aren't making money on 12 day, raise the price and see what happens.

And that's a double-edged sword. Raise price to make more money but you discourage others because they can't afford it.

rkolker wrote:I think it's more trying to find enough time in the sims and enough councilor hours to make it work than the dollars.

It seems their scheduling has declined over the years. But they also have a lot more going on these days than they did back "in the day."

They also only have the 4 Orbiters on the MCC. And when you have 2 teams with missions longer than 24 hours plus all of the training and all of the regular sessions it doesn't leave a lot of open sim time. When you add all the campers that are there in any given week (including weekend programs) it equals over 700 campers. So in one week now, camp has more campers than they had in the entire first season.

monkeynautt wrote:They also only have the 4 Orbiters on the MCC.

On the what?

Wait... is this just for Space Academy, or for Advanced Academy too?
Because if it's for Advanced Academy, I'll be frustrated. This year, I am turning 15, and I was actually allowed to attend ASA, but then someone else kicked me back out for being too young (which was fine with me as long as I had the chance to go to Advanced Academy once I turned 15).

So... just for Academy, or for ASA too?

Richasi wrote:

rkolker wrote:That being said, if they aren't making money on 12 day, raise the price and see what happens.

And that's a double-edged sword. Raise price to make more money but you discourage others because they can't afford it.

That's why I said "see what happens." It probably will somewhat negatively affect attendance, but you can't lose money and make it up in volume

Better it exists and costs a little more than it doesn't exist at all.

I stand by thinking it has more to do with capacity than money.

I hope they can make it work somehow.