The HabForum

Surrounding the Space Camp Hall of Fame dinner this year is a weekend of activities that seem like a lot of fun for $99 a person. The details are at http://www.spacecamp.com/30th. I am definitely planning to attend.

I was wondering if they were going to do anything for the 30th. If you go, please take photos of the retro uniform display, I’d love to see that but there’s no way I can go (I’m already scheduled for adult camp in September).
I wonder if they’ll make 30th anniversary patches like they did for the 25th? I sure hope so!

Cant afford the 99 dollar ticket but will be their for the weekend and the hall of fame dinner. Hope to see some hab 1 friends there.

Dang! I'm in Texas for a convention that weekend.

Sounds like an eventful weekend. Sadly, per usual, the $700 flight from here to there will leave me sitting at home. I expect a full report from someone!!

Woohoo! Going!

Hopefully I'll see some of you guys (and gals) there!

Sorry, I can't make it too. My nephew is getting married on June 15. (He should have known better, he was at Parent/Child with me in 1998 when we won the Outstanding Astronaut Trainee medal )

Tell him he can get married under the Pathfinder?

Congrats to the 2012 Inductees!

I will definitely be attending, looking forward to seeing everyone!

Question: will there be a Celebrity emcee, a-la William Shatner '07?

One more week to go! Looking forward to seeing everyone at the 30th Anniversary. The Hotdog is fired up. This is gonna be a good one.

Hotdog wrote:One more week to go! Looking forward to seeing everyone at the 30th Anniversary. The Hotdog is fired up. This is gonna be a good one.

We're expecting some good photos from this thing, for those who can't go but are green with jealousy!

Hotdog wrote:Congrats to the 2012 Inductees!

I will definitely be attending, looking forward to seeing everyone!

Question: will there be a Celebrity emcee, a-la William Shatner '07?

Not as MC but there are some cool guests lined up.

Funny story about Shatner's visit to Huntsville. He made a lot of Sprocket employees sweat as he skipped out on the practice run through and ended up buying a car from a Huntsville dealership just over an hour before the event started.

I was the door greeter that night so i got to met Shatner as well as all the inductees and other guests. I also got to shake Shatner's hand and welcome him. Then he proceeded to turn to go up stairs to a press confrence and cocktail reception. As he was walking he aparently was not poaying attention and tripped on a power cable going across the floor and nearly fell flaton his face with a camera crew following behind him. Thankfully he caught himself and didnt even go to the ground

Sneak preview of a little art project I'm working on for the Hall of Fame! I'll show the rest of it later.

I'm loving the vintage pictures Vincent keeps posting on the front page!



This is how I remember Endeavour! The great thing about this picture is it shows how the training center floor was OPEN so you could watch the missions and training going on throughout the day. On the TV screens you see above the Endeavour (facing the cafeteria) you could watch the Endeavour mission screens and animations. This was a really cool part of the museum visitor experience that you don't get anymore since they've now got everything blocked off! I think this hurts Space Camp recruiting. I think it was the sight of the training center floor that convinced my parents that the Space Camp experience would be worth the money.



I remember this guy! He was the counselor who woke us up in the morning. He would come around all the bunks and yell "OK EVERYBODY TIME TO MAKE THE DONUTS!" I have a cartoon I drew of him somewhere in my Space Camp things. Check out the cool velcro shorts the counselors wore back then.

Oh and I think the Slate article is wrong about when Mr. Bush visited Space Camp. It was either 1989 or 1991. I have the issue of the Space Camp News letter that featured the visit. I'll have to dig it up.

...(they resumed in 1990), so I did this instead.

Okay, the event is over, where are the photos?

Well pictures are still to come but i figured I'd at least get on here and post a write up of the weekend.

I didn't make it down for the movie airing or other events on thursday so those will have to be left to someone else to cover.

I got into Huntsville about 1 PM on Friday after getting a slightly later start than i planned. I met up with Hotdog (aka Brian) who i was sharing a hotel room with for the weekend. We met up over at the Davidson Center and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around taking in the sights seeing what was new etc. We also ran into the Hall of Fame members over in the old museum just after they unveiled the new plaque with this year's members. We chatted with some of them for a while before continuing on, eventually making it back to the hotel where Richasi came over and we all hung out for a while looking through some of the old space camp items we had brought to show off. Then it was time to get dressed for the dinner.

We all headed over to the Davidson center for the Hall of Fame dinner which was delicious as always. We spent some time making the rounds talking to people. We met Dr. Barnhart and discussed alumni relations for a while and it sounds like more alumni communications and a college-like alumni assosciation may be in the works for the future. She was very nice and seemed happy to discuss ideas in the future. The ceremony that night actually was one of the shorter ones of the ones i've been to. It included videos from some Space Camp in years past. Remarks by Ed Buckbee, and several other dignitaries and of course the induction of the new members and their speeches. Afterwards, I also had the chance to meet Astronauts Rhea Seddon and Owen Garriott as well. As usual the party then went to Otters where it continued till they kicked us out at 2 am though by the looks of it it could have continued all night the way it was going. Brian and I actually ended up going over to the room of hall of famer Danny Jaques for an after party after party of sorts! I think we finally got to the room about 3:30 am and collapsed. I should also mention we ofcourse ran into Vince and Benji as well that night at the dinner.

The next day i got up early and went over to the space center for a while. Hotdog was feeling under the weather and joined me later that afternoon. At noon i went down to the Aviation Challenge Lake for the barbecue they were having which i had been invited to the night before even without the higher dollar ticket which i had not gotten. I had a great time! Benji and Richasi were down there also met someone who had attended Space Camp California she was also given the address of this site so hopefully she will be joining. I got a chance to fly the Mach 2 sims again and after chatting with some of the AC counselors about my time there they even let me run the Mach 1 sims for a while which was cool and brought back some good memories of my time there.

At two they kicked everyone out so i went back to the rocket center and met up with Brian and we took the behind the scenes tour. I felt bad for the guide we were the only two on the tour and she knew we were alumni and i think she felt nervous about the whole thing. It turned into more of a she got us behind the scenes and we took pictures and told her about our time at camp but i think we all had a good time by the end, the guide included. We stayed at Sprocket till it was getting ready to close then headed back to the hotel. After relaxing for a while i went down to the pool where i met up with many of the Hall of Fame members who were down there and spent the rest of the evening eating drinking, joking around and just having a good time. Made some great new friends that night and look forward to keeping in touch with them.

Sunday morning came way too quickly. I went over to the Space Center one last time for a while before we had to check out of the hotel. Then as quickly as it started it was over and i was back on the road for home. I made a quick stop in Decatur to see some of its Civil War sights before heading home. The drive took longer than it should have due to traffic in Nashville but got home last night about 7:30.

Overall it was a great weekend. I'm glad to see that work seems to be going on toward better alumni relations. I also met up with Wes Lions of sprocketeers.org and many new friends. The only real disapointment was the lack of 30th anniversary merchandise. About the only things they had was a pin which I bought, a T-shirt, and some 80's style tube socks with space camp and AC logos on them. I did love the retro look alot of the counselors were sporting for the weekend. The camp dug out some of the old T-shirts from the early 90s and the old style counselor shorts sporting thiose with the 80s style socks was quite the look but felt very nostalgic from by early days.

p51 wrote:Okay, the event is over, where are the photos?

"Retro Night" photos are up.

http://www.spacecamp.com/gallery/thumbn ... ?album=233

Vince, do you know if/where/when they might post the group pictures the photographer was taking? I'd love to see ours, but no one really directed us where we could do that.

I assume they might be coming in the near future but I dunno. Do you?