Extracted from my personal Space Camp website:
http://www.freewebs.com/willysmb44/spacecamp.htm
•Shorts with cargo pockets on the side. It's
really hot in Huntsville into the late summer. That's all I wore my first time, with the camp (or other NASA) shirt and they came in really handy as a water bottle fit well into one side.
•A shirt you want to be seen in photos wearing at camp. They give you a camp shirt at the start but nobody wanted to wear the same shirt for several days straight in that heat. Most of us wore them the first and last days.
•Water bottle (see above). I had a nice metal one, but a plastic bottled water bottle I bought in Atlanta worked great, which has turned into a tradition for me. There are plenty of places to fill it at Camp. Again, it's very hot, so hydrating is a big thing. And you can toss it when you get back on the plane.
•Small notebook. They gave us a huge office-style notebook but I brought my own small metal-cover organizer which came in really handy, which was a little bigger than a 5X7 picture frame. There are things you need to take notes for.
•Something for 'white noise' at night. It's really quiet in the HAB and neither me nor my roomie slept well for that reason the first time.
•A good camera. I brought my Canon EOS, which isn't small but gets great shots (all the shots on this page were taken with it). Sure, I had to lug it around but it was worth it to get great photos. Cells have really good cameras, but if you want good quality shots, bring a good quality camera.
•A couple of sharpie markers and small set of colored pencils. This is for the mission patch design. The sharpie really makes a mission patch design pop out. If you look up in this page you'll see how the patches I drew looked so much better with a sharpie!
•A bag to carry everything in. I had the helmet bag covered in NASA patches and it came in really handy. There was always a place to put it aside, even when I piloted/commanded the orbiter. The gift shop sells a neat (and not too expensive) Space Camp backpack, if you want something official for that.
• shower shoes
• coat hangars, mostly for your flight suit.
• padlocks with rotating numbers on the side, for the. Wall lockers.
