The HabForum

Last week I went to Huntsville & talked to management at space camp. I am working on a 4 day space camp for September or early October 2013. This date is not locked in. The camp would be 1 day of Aviation Challenge & 3 day space theme. The camp include 2 missions in Aviation & 3 mssions in space. The last space mission will be at least two hours up to 6 hour mission. If the team wants to go, the last mission can be longer if wanted. On the last day before graduation, the team will go to Marshall on the bus. The general public will not be on this bus tour. So here a small bit of information, if you are interested please contact me. This camp will be great time for extended space camp not offered currently.

Steve, I am very interested. How much is tuition? Would the 4 days span over a weekend?

[darn], I'm so excited I want to go put on my flightsuit. Definately feels like Christmas now. Looking forward to your reply and more details!

The cost will $1200.00 per person. It will start at 11:00 am on Thursday and graduation will be 1:30 pm on Sunday. Price does include all meals & be staying at Habitat. Hotdog, this will be more than a normal weekend for sure. Also I rode the bus tour we took back in July, alot activity on NASA side since July. I will post a layout of the program soon. Thanks for the interest.

This sounds do-able. Looking forward to seeing the layout of the program itinerary. It seems the ol' Hotdog may be coming back for one last go-around after all! How soon will I need to have the payment?

Hotdog wrote:This sounds do-able. Looking forward to seeing the layout of the program itinerary. It seems the ol' Hotdog may be coming back for one last go-around after all! How soon will I need to have the payment?

Later this week I will post a itineary. We will need half due per person due by May 1. Remaninder two weeks before camp. Looking forward for you being part of the camp.

I am so glad someone else is trying to plan an adult camp! I really hope it works out! If you plan it close to when I am there, I'd love to meet some of you.

I am definitely interested. Let me know as soon as you nail down the dates. I will need that to get the time off at work.

Yes, definitely interested.

Conan wrote:Let me know as soon as you nail down the dates. I will need that to get the time off at work.

Same here (and probably a common theme for most of us). My problem is I can't ask for time off until June for anything that takes place after that month. For something like this I could probably get some kind of tentative OK from my boss, though (otherwise, nobody I work with could ever go on cruises, plan for Christmas holidays, etc in advance).
My wife and I have tentaviely planned on doing a vacation next year where we tour the entire state of Tennessee and I could easily combine it with this, just leaving for hutsville a few days before she does and have her show up as we graduate then, hitting the road right afterward.
The cost is going to be a tough point when trying to sell this to my wife, though. Just shy of $600 was perfectly acceptable for her fo the 3-day SC I went to this year, but $1200 might not be so easy. I have talked with her on this, though and she has surprised me in the past with other things. I had to pass on another custom camp other folks were working on, but that one was over a week and a lot more money, I couldn't justify either. This timeframe is far more plausible for me, though. And to go through camp with people who've all done it before? Yeah, I'd love to do that!

Lets shoot for the following dates:
Thursday September 26th thru Sunday 29th

The following is a basic itinerary:
If the team wants less aviation, I can change to more space theme. Please note Charlie mission on Saturday has no end time listed. It can be two hours till.
Please look over it & thanks so much for the interest.
DAY 1
11:00 AM ARRIVAL AND MOVE IN
12:00 PM WELCOME LUNCH
1:00 PM TAKE OFF/LANDING BRIEFING
1:30 PM SIM 1- TAKE OFF/LANDING
3:00 PM FLIGHT PHYS
3:30 PM NAVIGATION AND AIR TO GROUND BRIEFING
4:00 PM SIM 2- NAVIGATION AND AIR TO GROUND
5:30 PM T-OPS
6:00 PM DINNER
7:00 PM MISSION 1
7:30 PM CENTRIFUGE

DAY 2
8:00 AM BREAKFAST
9:00 AM AIR TO AIR BRIEFING
9:30 AM SIM 3- AIR TO AIR AND COMBAT
10:30 AM T-OPS
11:00 AM MISSION 2
12:00 PM LUNCH
1:00 PM SHUTTLE O
2:00 PM ALPHA MISSION TRAINING
3:30 PM 5 DF CHAIR
4:30 PM ALPHA MISSION
5:30 PM DAVIDSON TOUR
6:30 PM DINNER
7:30 PM ROCKET CONSTRUCTION 1

DAY 3
8:00 AM BREAKFAST
9:00 AM BRAVO MISSION TRAINING
10:30 AM ROCKET CONSTRUCTION 2
12:00 PM LUNCH
1:00 PM BRAVO MISSION
2:00 PM MAT
3:00 PM CHARLIE MISSION TRAINING
4:30 PM ROCKET LAUNCH
5:30 PM 1/6TH CHAIR
6:30 PM DINNER
7:30 PM CHARLIE MISSION

DAY 4
8:00 AM MOVE OUT AND BREAKFAST
9:00 AM MUSEUM/GIFT SHOP TIME
10:30 AM MARSHALL TOUR
12:30 PM LUNCH
1:00 PM PREP FOR GRAD
1:30 PM GRADUATION

Steve, that itinerary looks almost perfect for an ol' "hotdog" flying ACE like myself I love the focus on the piloting aspect since that's my forte!

But I wonder about some of the more EVA/Scuba/Mission Specialist-minded folks, and what they would want to be doing while us fighter jocks are flying sorties over at AC.

What is the minimum number of people you need to make this camp happen, and do you have people outside of Hab1 lined up to attend this session?

So far I am SOLD and cannot wait to come out of retirement and go do this, but I wonder if you are going to need to mix-up or split the itinerary somehow in order to please everyone else who might want to go.

ALSO...what about IMAX/Spacedome movies? Some of my fondest memories of Space Camp are taking in a movie in the Spacedome at the end of the day. I'm guessing this costs extra? Oh well I guess if it comes down to an IMAX movie or an ATO at Otters to wind down at the end of the day ya know Hotdog will wanna go with the ATO!

I talked to my wife about this whole deal and she didn't shoot it down right away. Not a bad sign.
On these custom camp options, can the campers choose the positions they would most like to do, or is it random like when you normally show up? I would really like to command a shuttle mission next time. Don't get me wrong, being the pilot on the Charlie mission was a dream come true last time, but I'd have liked to have taken the orbiter in myself...

Looks pretty good to me. Having attended both AC and Space Camp numerous times, I like that it is pretty equal amounts of both. Now if you could only get the Sergeant Major back for a visit!. Those dates should be good for me too, although I will have to wait until March to get approval.

Hot Dog, The minimum number we need is 12. P51 has a email out to the folks we were in with camp back in September. If you know anyone is interested, please let me know or have them to contact me. I will check & see if we can two programs at the same time.It will be next week since the lady I am working with out till next week. I can change the AC enough to line up the space theme on 2nd day.

p51 wrote: On these custom camp options, can the campers choose the positions they would most like to do, or is it random like when you normally show up? I would really like to command a shuttle mission next time. Don't get me wrong, being the pilot on the Charlie mission was a dream come true last time, but I'd have liked to have taken the orbiter in myself...

Looks like the current itinerary has alpha, bravo and charlie missions, so if all we have is 12 people you should have a pretty good shot at being shuttle commander for at least one of the three missions. If it came down to me or you, I wouldn't mind taking the pilot's seat since I have been commander twice and have never done pilot. As long as I'm on the flight deck I am happy and at home

Steve, could you please PM me with your contact information (email address?). I may direct some non-Hab1 people who were interested in the week-long adult camp your way.

I'm definitely interested. However I can't commit right now. Still working on figuring out work travel dates, church mission trip(s)s, etc.
But please do keep me in the loop for this.

This sounds interesting! I'll put it on my radar and re-assess shortly. =)

gt0163c wrote:I'm definitely interested. However I can't commit right now. Still working on figuring out work travel dates, church mission trip(s)s, etc.
But please do keep me in the loop for this.

I sure will, looking for good camp in the fall.

I'm really pumped about the idea. I don't think anyone from the 2012 Team Columbia (Steve and I were on that) are interested coming, nobody sent any replies. Steve and I were really the most likely to go back at that time, although I was hoping a couple of others who seemed might want to come back would ask, but nobody did.
I've been talking with friends of mine really into the space program. There's a Boeing engineer who liked the idea but the fall is a terrible time for him, job-wise, for some reason. My best friend from Florida (who just hit 60 recently) is pretty pumped, but he cares for his elderly mother so getting someone to take over for him for a few days is far easier said than done. But if he can, I think I've painted a cool enough picture that he'd wanna go (the sad part is he's like me this time last year, he thinks it's cool but really doesn't understand what he's been missing until he actually goes). Otherwise, I really don't know too many people I could seriously count on committing to this. I hope the SC vets would throw in, though.
Like I wrote earlier, my wife hasn't shot this down, and shooting ideas down is her normal default mode. That's a good sign.
I've even been working on a tentative patch design. If we were to get everything all lined up early enough, I could possibly get patches to people before they even show up for the camp. How cool would it be to show up at camp with your custom team patch already sewn on?