Space Camp Day 3

      Wow! What another day!  Started off with more great breakfast of eggs, bacon. sausage, potatoes, and pancakes.  Or first session was on using literacy and science collectively as an interdisciplinary approach.  Where were a lot of great ideas especially using descriptive skills based on the Earth and expanding to Mars.  Also about a site where you can submit local rocks for professional analysis.  We looked at creating student Astronaut biographies, and "My Space" posters for planets and other things.  There were a great number of resources shared once again this time focusing on movies, books, and even a mini-series.

     At that point we went over to the Davidson Museum at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and looked at the models of Mercury and Gemeni and the actual capsule form an Apollo mission.  We also looked at the Saturn 5 Rocket Model they used for testing.  Amazing that the most powerful liquid fueled rockets to date were built in the 60's!  We also looked at the lunar landing system and rover.  What cool place!  Time for a Mexican lunch before heading to Aviation Challenge.

     Aviation Challenge was where we go to do some aviation simulations starting with the Helio-dunker.  Six of us load into a steal tube with windows simulating a helicopter.  It is lowered into the water and submerged 3/4 of the way and you have to follow the escape plan.  Then you do it a second time only there are injuries or in my case...death!  Then we went to the lifter which is where they lower a net chair like would be lowered from a helicopter and you climb in and feel what it would be like to be raised from the water.  At this point we were suppose to do the zipline, but it needed to be inspected and their was a storm blowing in so we headed to mission training. 

     We prepared for our Atlantis mission tomorrow.  My duties are a payload specialist where my partner and I will maintain several systems and telescopes during take off and de-orbit.  Another part of our job will  gathering data on our space walkers, and conducting several experiments.  In order to complete these we have a habitat in the mid-deck of the orbiter and have to crawl through airlock and a series of portholes to get to our lab.  Then we went for our chinese supper followed by our model rocket workshop.

     We assembled our model rocket which includes space camp stickers and a clear payload area.  Today we constructed and decorated and the plan is to launch on Monday.  After the workshop we were able to return to the zipline and get our  wet clothes back on.  The zipline is designed to simulate the last 50 ft of a parachute landing into water.  You are released off of a roughly 40 foot tower backwards and then drag into the water where you have to unhook from your parachute and swim to safety.  It was once again more amazing opportunities at the the Aviation Challenge!

     Tomorrow we will complete our final mission, have a session on "Ask Mr. Sun Spot", Do a Martian Math activity, build out pop-bottle rockets, and we also have a Mission wrap-up dinner and celebration which we have been told they have a lot planned to celebrate.

Space Academy Adventure

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