The HabForum

Just a simple list, feel free to add to it:

1. You feel naked without an ID lanyard around your neck
2. Clothing that isn't royal blue or lacks either a SC or NASA logo seems wrong somehow
3. You can get lost at your own home or office, but you know your way around the SC grounds like the back of your hand
4. You measure the stages of you life in relation to SC trips, as in, "What year was my wedding? Let's see, that was the year I got the commander slot on the LDM in the Atlantis sim, so that must have been 2012..."
5. Something about a flight suit feels, "right" to you and you never served in the military or flew aircraft as an occupation
6. You almost feel like you were (or still are) an astronaut
7. Every time you go see a movie, you think of the IMAX theater at Camp
8. You know that Huntsville must have other things going for it, but it's never occured to you to spend a moment there other than at SC (or the Redstone tour)
9. Not a day goes by where you don't badly want to be walking through the main gate in front of the hab
10. Your life is spent waiting for your next trip to Hunstville
11. You can't eat any cafeteria food without thinking of the one at Camp
12. The staff at SC knows you by name every time you first arrive, or at the very least recognizes you when you first walk in
13. You have a favorite trainer and feel disappointed when you don't get him/her
14. You keep looking at the main part of this forum, looking to see if anyone has posted anything
15. Each time a new person mentions a SC trip for the first time here, you get ticked when they don't post a full blog on how their experience went
16. You consider a year without SC to be a wasted one, for the most part

17. You crawl into your kids bunk beds, and pretend you're in the Hab
18. You refer to any common bathroom facility as "waste management"
19. You have sudden urges to duct tape someone to a wall
20. Going somewhere now requires that the whole family go through a "pre-launch checklist"
21. You ask your spouse to pick up some Dippin' Dots on the way home
22. Every family vacation now requires its' own mission patch!

23.
You pack for your next Space Camp trip months in advance out of your dedicated Space Camp wardrobe.

24. You can make a quilt from all the Space Camp shirts you have collected over the years (and those are just the ones that don't fit)
25. The photo album from your trip(s) to Space Camp gets viewed more times than any other album combined
26. You feel disappointed when you leave the house and Pathfinder isn't parked in the middle of your cul-de-sac
27. ...or the lack of space rockets in your park
28. You can find a way to add a comment about Space Camp to every conversation.

True that!

Sorry about being #15....I was working on my blog, got strep throat that wouldn't go away for almost a month and just haven't got back to it yet!

29 When you keep so many photos of Space Camp on your I Phone the memory is full, even they are saved have on your computer, still refuse to delete so you can look at them anytime.
30 When you want to hang out at Space Camp when they are closing the doors for Thanksgiving & Christmas.

31. You start a group to reunite one of your space camp teams from 1998 atleast online. (succeded in doing this a few years ago)
32. You are currently using the said group to try to get as many of the team back together as possible for a 20 year reunion in in 2018. (working on this now)
33. you randomly search facebook for people you knew from space camp 20 or more years ago but have lost touch with.

34. You find yourself, late at night, looking at your old SC photos or things and you get a real sad feeling, even though you still have a broad smile on your face.
35. Whenever you see a movie about a space mission, you start picking it apart as you know better (again, feeling like you'd really been an astronaut).
36. At work, the word "Teamwork" sounds more like a punchline, and you find yourself thinking, "This isn't a team. I was on a real team once (at Huntsville)!"
37. You find yourself looking up the forecast or current weather at the Center, just out of curiosity, even if you're not going back soon.
38. You're happy for friends who are going when you can't go yourself, but deep down, you understand how astronauts feel when someone else is picked for a mission they wanted to fly.
39. You might not have a current photo of your spouse, squeeze or your kids on your cell but you have plenty of good shots from Camp, regardless how long it's been since you were there last.

40. You use Google street view to virtually walk around the perimeter of Space Camp because it makes you feel like you are there again.
41. Whenever you change your Facebook profile picture, you use a different photo of yourself from past Space Camps.

42. You have so many photos of you at work showing you at camp, part of the tour of your office for the new hired people includes mentions to new people, "No, that's not really a former astronaut in that cubicle..."
43. If any of your teams ever made patches for your mission patch designs after camp was over, you make a point to show them off everywhere you can.
44. If you go to either of the Kennedy or Johnson Space Center tours, you have to remind yourself you're not allowed anywhere that the public can't go, unlike at Huntsville (to include hanging around under the Saturn V at either place after hours).
45. When any question of where you and your sweetie/family is going for next year's vacation automatically includes wondering how you could fit Huntsville into the trip for another run at Space Camp.
46. You think anyone who has been to Space Camp fewer times than you is a silver-pin-wearing ASCAN*
47. You think anyone who has been to Space Camp more times than you really needs to get a life!


*ASCAN: AStronaut CANdidate, a former label to astornauts who haven't been in space yet. their astronaut pins are silver. When they've flown in space, they get a gold one. Just in case any of you didn't know that, which is probably unlikely!

48. A medical professional prescribes you to return to Space Camp. (Not kidding!)

49. When you arrive home after attending the Alumni Festival, wanting to go back next week.

50. You worry so much in advance for trying to get a scholarship, not all the information hasn't been released. And you have written a good part of what you know is out.

Special needs, in case you where wondering. It's for dysgraphia. Space camp gave me freedom from feeling weighted down by it.

51. You could recognize former teammates on a call sign basis but get your teachers mixed up.
52. You're automatically the go-to person at your school for when somebody wants to know what's new at NASA.

53. The only other group that begins to understand is your fellow rocket team members or the aviation classes.

54. You forget that your team mates have actual names because you only ever think of them using their call signs. Even when you aren't at camp.

(On a recent trip to visit a Space Camp friend this summer the US border person asked me what the name of my friend was and I had to stop and really think about it because it didn't come to mind right away. I just always refer to her by her call sign.)

55. When you discovered this forum, you know your life is so much better.

56. When you ask for an audience with the Space Camp CEO in her office, and she greets you by your Callsign, turns to her children, and says (pointing to the fifteen Camp wings on your lanyard) "See kids, this is what it looks like when you're addicted to Space Camp." Happened last Friday.

Phoenix PK wrote:56. When you ask for an audience with the Space Camp CEO in her office, and she greets you by your Callsign, turns to her children, and says (pointing to the fifteen Camp wings on your lanyard) "See kids, this is what it looks like when you're addicted to Space Camp." Happened last Friday.

57. And you are jealous of the fact because you only have been able to go twice. And you are addicted.