The HabForum

OK gang. Here's the promised debriefing of my week at ASA. It will have two parts...the second half will be over on the AC forum, and will deal with what we did there and new stuff we saw. It *will* contain spoilers of new things AC has to offer, so if you want to be surprised, don't read it.

The Teams
First off, the teams were both really great. There were 11 people on my team (Kennedy) and 14 on Marshall. Don't ask me why they split it like that. We had a wide array of ages and professions...many in engineering and computers. A couple of folks are really looking into becoming MS/PS on future shuttle flights. I enjoyed the friendship between the teams this year. You don't always see that.

The Counselors
My counselors this year were Samantha and Stephen. Both of them were fantastic...although Stephen's laconic attitude rubbed off on the rest of us...we were often late to the next lecture, or training session, or breakfast for that matter.... Anyway, they were great, and I hope to see them again.

Food and Dorms
Nothing to write home about. You all know what they're like. They still served Mexican on SCUBA day. I guess they wanted a few more bubbles in the tank.

Our Training Missions
Because our team was so small, assigning mission positions took some creative juggling. We doubled up on many MOCR positions. For example, I was PROP and EVA for our Alpha mission. SHIPPY and SIPPY were combined for one of the missions where we used the station. As far as station went, we had one training mission with it, but we did not use it for the EDM...we just didn't have the people. I was Flight Officer on station and we only had 3 people there. For our third mission, I was MS1 riding on the Canada arm. What a rush! I got a bit giggly when I realized just how high up I was, and I'm not afraid of heights. It was OK when I got used to it. The only beef I had was that I was strapped in a bit too tight and had a real struggle to reach some switches in the satellite. But I guess that's better than falling out, huh?

SCUBA Time, Rockets and Area 51
No, I didn't SCUBA this year, but I did get to snorkel, which I'd never done before. They gave me a wetsuit to wear since I can't swim very well, but everyone else got the long shirts over their swimsuits. The water was so warm, we didn't want to get out. And the MS didn't get *in* the tank until 9 p.m.! This year we had a choice between doing Area 51 and building rockets. Despite my longing for an Area 51 t-shirt, I chose to build a rocket. Unfortunately, it didn't blow up on the pad like I'd hoped, but flew nice and straight. Darn! Any suggestions for next year? If you've seen my pictures over on Ofoto, you know that not every rocket flew as planned. Some thought they were guided missles....

The EDM
Don't worry Vincent, I'm not going to say anything about the "anomolies," but I do want to mention one in particular. First off, for the EDM, people were switching tracks all over the place. I was MS for the first half and PS for the second half. Pilots were MS and so on....It was nuts! We just didn't have the people, and there weren't enough counselors to fill in either. During the second half, we had 3 MS and had a special EVA for one of them, it solved an anomoly and got her outside. Now, here's the one anomoly I want to mention....I said earlier that there were good relations between Kennedy and Marshall teams, right? Well, Marshall finished their EDM by the early evening and were free when we were doing ours. So they hatched a little plan without telling anyone. During a particularly difficult thinking anomoly for our MOCR, the Marshall team stormed mission control in a "terrorist attack." They had the controllers surrender their headsets and step away from their consoles, holding them "hostage" for about 5 min. or so. I'm told the counselors were stunned as they'd never dreamed anyone would do such a thing. They were also frustrated because the thinking anomoly was down the tubes, and they had to go get more headsets. Oh well.... On the orbiter, we had no idea what was going on. We were writing notes on pieces of paper and putting them up to the cameras thinking it was an audio failure or something. Hee hee.

More over on AC forum
That's about it as far as the Camp side of things goes. Check over on the AC forum for more on that (growing) side of things.

Well it sounds like you had a great time as always Kemara. It makes me miss camp even more. But your account also worries me becauser of the fact they didnt have enough adults for 2 full teams and ussualy the adult programs filll up quickly. This doesnt seem like a good sign for the camp.

I'm 99% sure the reason there weren't more people is because the week fell during the first anniversary of Sept. 11. People were afraid to travel or wanted to stay close to their families on that day. From what the counselors told me, while reservations did fall off after last Sept., they're still doing just fine. Apparently, the fall is always a slow time and many of the counselors were on vacation while we were there. FYI, there were the same number of teams this year during that week as last year.

Well that makes sense too. And i always knew their was a drop off in fall. I was their visiting with a tour group in october 98 and their was almost noone their that week at all except for maybe 1 team for each program. Ofcourse that gave us great access to the whole training center. And our guide the museum curator let me take the group through the training center and give the tour.

Oh man.... now I'm more jazzed then ever to go with ya next year.. WOOHOO!!! Sounds exciting... and muy fun... =)

I know every time one of you guys go to camp it makes me wish i could go back more. I know they say they can acomodate people in wheel chairs but i just dont see gow its possible.

And you'll never know until you TRY it

What can it hurt to make a phone call and ask them how they
accomodate? Ask them how they can do the training etc...

And then sign up and go!

Ricky

Well i guess i could. Like i said though haviung gone 4 times and having seen their facilities like the hab i can see where the rooms would be ok if i got the bottom bunk. But then i dont know how they would be set up for bathing or to use any of the simulators.

And... you'll never know until you call them and inquire. You're not going to know sitting here... so go call them and find out and then join Kemara and I next Fall!

Ricky

Yes Sir right away sir anything else sir?

No Cadet, that'll be all.

DISMISSED!

sure yeah right.

LOL

Oh boy now hes giving me the evil face just for not calling space camp uet to find out about something i cant afford.

No, that's the Twisted face

Just because you can't afford it NEXT year doesn't mean you won't be able to after that... and the questions are still valid... so ask!
Then you can post that wonderful news to us and we can talk about it.

Guess ill have to since ill never hear the end of it if i dont.

Right

And why is everyone suddenly picking on me?

It's your turn

Ok maybe we should get back on topic whatever tyhat was.