The HabForum

Lets see some of the differences/changes this year at ASA

the book has gotten really small. it no longer even has a spiral binding... its got the ol' two staple binding. Its no longer even a book... its a booklet!

no changes to Enterprise/MOCR. i know it stinks

the curriculum has been changed alot to allow for much more free time, theyve added the "social"

among the graduation materials now is a CD-ROM "Throttle Up" I dont think its the actual throttle up but its got alot of different stuff on it. i think its geared for younger ages though.

the flight suits from the prepaid package are now the dark blue. they look allright but most everyone still had the old light blue.

i know there's more but i dont have time to post them all now!

It sounds like the financial problams are starting to show.

That's a shame about the books...

...At least I still have a couple copies of the various really thick ones!

I have 2 oif the nice thick books. The first one is from space camp in 91. It has tons of infor on the space shuttle as well as the simulators we used and diffrent info on astronaut atuff as well as a listing of all the astronauts up to that time. The secone oine From Space Academy Level 1 is even thicker. It doesnt have all the simulator information but it has alot more on the shuttle and astronaut stuff as well as showing some of the diffrences between the pre and post challenger shuttle. Other than that its about the same as the camp one. I think the books got smaller when Edward Obuckbee left. I went to AC Intermediate (Mach 3) in 96 where i got a verry small pocket check list book with some info on military radio communication and aerobatics. It seems like things started going down hill about that time. When i went to ASA i got a throttle up book it was bigger than the AC book but still much smaller than the first 2 i got and didnt have as much info.

Ed Buckbee left (I think) in 1992, didn't he?

...the books didn't really lose their bulk until 1997 or 1998...

No Buckbee was still director of the center in 1993 and i think he was still their for a few more years after. But within a few years of him leaving they renamed the programs made the books smaller shortened ASA to 6 from the 8 days it had with Academy Level 2 and lessened the materials you recieved.

Well, that's true enough...but don't forget, Level II was 10 days at one time...before he left...and the books came in 3-ring binders...

So while I agree he was and still is the most qualified person to run the show, no matter who's running it is going to do what he feels is best to keep it going...so I resepect that, at least...

Well i have been getting the brochures since 1989. And from atleast 89 till 97 Academy level 2 was 8 days then the next year it went to ASA and a 6 day program. The 3 ring binders predate me my books were just verry large spiral books.

although i havent seen previous books im just glad that these were pocket sized and not like websters dictionary (not pocket sized college edition size)

Actually the bigger books werent real heavy just took up more space.

well i lost my book the first night when i had to move to AC hab 3 and back again the next day. but i found it in the hotel the night after grad. it was in my luggage the whole time! anyway i forgot to mention how cheap the books really are... the ink from the cover rubs off onto your hands so after some handling the cover has no picture left. Lyn's book has no cover because... um... did i mention how cheap the books are?

I think the biggest change is the added free time. no longer do you have to be here and then there for different things. There is alot more "down time" in between classes and activities. There is much more time to just "hang out" and relax. Its a big improvement in my opinion.

We were watching the camp kids launch there water rockets one day and this one flew really high, like 200 feet or so, and came down and went right through the Astrotrek building! all that you could see were these fins sticking out the top of the aluminum building. that was pretty cool

yeah i think ben and phil were really cool to give us the coice of ac tour or free tim at the tank

Last year, even with Carlos as my counselor, everything was much more "by the book" and the schedule was followed almost exactly.
There was little room between scheduled activities.

This year, I talked with one of the counselors. He said that the "Evaluations" trainees fill out at the end of the week often said that they wanted more free time and time to just hang out. So last year they completely reworked the curriculum and changed scheduling procedures. Part of this was more "free swim" time, adding the social, putting more time in-between activities, allowing more input from trainees as to what they'd like to do next, and much more freedom on the part of the counselors(and trainees). All in all I think its a change for the better. The environment is more relaxed and much more fun. More emphasis is put on having fun than on "sqeezing it all in." I did enjoy this year much more partly because of the changes.

Though I'm sure its not true, the thought admittedly did cross my mind that this may be a way to "hide" some of the financial troubles plaguing space camp. By letting everyone have more down time and making it more fun, they could more easily get away with not being able to update sims and facilities, etc., since people are less likely to notice. Like I said, I'm sure its not true, and it doesn't matter, as the changes make the time even more awesome than ever.

You may be right, as I would hear from some that they wished the schedule wasn't so tight...

...I for one liked it very much...only at Space Camp has such a long day gone by so quickly, yet felt so full! Plus, I never thought of a camp as a place I took the trouble of going to just so I can sit around and do nothing for long periods of time!

...I for one had no problems with the old schedule...though since they added a sixth day this summer, I guess more free time is alright...but if/when it goes back to 5 days, I would hate to see a large amount of free time present...

Personally i liked the old schedule too. Unfortunately some of the stuff we were scheduled to do at ASA which i would have liked to do didnt get done though because our day counselor decided she wanted free time. I'm sorry but i didnt pay 900 dollars to sit around and play cards for a couple of hours or more every day i was there.

I agree its good to have some time to get to know people and even when i went 4 yewars ago that time was built into the schedule. What i had a problem with is our counselor deciding to have free time when we were scheduled to do something else like space shot or the museum.

Ok, i can understand that. If something is schedualed like a simulator you should have the option to do it. The simulators and missions are after all what we pay to do there.

Well other than space shot we always got the sims we were supose to go on. But we didnt get some of the stuff like going to the museum. Its not as big a deal to me it was my 4th time going to space camp but most of mny team it was there first trip and they never got a chance to see the museum or the rocket park much. And they did complain our day counselor just preferred to sit around and play cards.

orion8 wrote: We were watching the camp kids launch there water rockets one day and this one flew really high, like 200 feet or so, and came down and went right through the Astrotrek building! all that you could see were these fins sticking out the top of the aluminum building. that was pretty cool

HAHAHA THATS SO AWESOME
we made those in academy...ours went up...ooh about 2 inches or so..