A day in the life of a Teacher at Space Camp!
There is nothing ordinary about the day in tn the life of a teacher at space camp! Have you ever wanted to go to the moon? Travel to the stars? Experience the wonder of being a child again? This is the place to do all of that and more. These are just some of the experiences and adventure from my trip at Space Camp for Educators.
There is no such thing as a typical day at space camp. Beginning at 6:30 am and ending at 7:30 PM you will learn the true meaning of space camp tired. This is however a great thing! The day starts with breakfast in the dining hall, and then you move into your activities, and what a variety of things. There are mission practice and training, followed by actual missions in full size simulators. There are simulator trainers like the 1/6 gravity chair and the Multi-Axis trainer (MAT) to try, that allow you to feel as if you are in space. There are also a low ropes team building course, rocketry, break out sessions with other educators, a tour of the Saturn Rocket at the Davidson center, time in the IMAX theatre, and water activities training (like the zip line and helicopter crash landing simulator) to experience during your day. During your day they will feed you lunch and dinner in the dining hall – and unlike your typical camp food – the food at space camp is delicious. They take pride in their work of feeding all the campers quality food. Please take a look at the pictures and videos on this page to learn about more of the activities that I participated in during my days at space camp.
Here I am as "Commander" of the Enterprise - Move over Captain Kirk! In this mission simulator I was responsible for working with my pilot to fly a group of mission specialists to the space station, as well as handling any ship board system warnings that occurred. I was able to land the shuttle and flew the simulator for about 20 mins. My camp counselor was impressed, and we did land successfully, and nearly in the middle of the run way!
The video on the right shows me using the MAT trainer. This was exciting! Every member of Team Zvezda had the chance to participate!
Below is a picture of Mission Control. For our second mission I was CAPCOM. It mys job to communicate with the Orion crew and to help the crew handle ship board emergencies, by directing them through various problem solving steps.
Nothing says “team” like our very own mission patch. During one of our breakout sessions members of team Zvezda worked together to design this patch – as is the tradition of astronauts to design their own mission patch.
Team Zvezda - "Oreo's " during the low ropes team buildling exercise.
- Check out the upper right corner of our team patch!
Water Training activities included this backwards zip line that simulates a parachute landing in water.
My team badge and name tag for my flight suit.