and then also to hopefully impart some things like all of us are going to go through rough times, but there are ways to stay plugged in.”Īs Metcalf-Lindenburger shook hands with each of the nearly 1,000 graduates at week’s end, another Space Camp graduate, Serena Aunon-Chancellor, orbited Earth aboard the International Space Station. Her goal is to help campers “see that what they were doing this week isn’t so very different than what we did in the program and how it prepares you for real space. “We can’t train kids on a whole bunch of switches and circuit breakers and systems, but we can give them the big idea.” Space Camp’s simulations are “as realistic as they can be for what’s done in a week,” she said. She went on to fly aboard Discovery in 2010 as a NASA astronaut-educator. She attended a Space Academy for older students the same month that shuttle Discovery delivered the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit in 1990. In July, campers got to meet the first Space Camp graduate to actually launch into space, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger. They even live in dormitories that look as though they belong on the moon or Mars.Ĭamp counselors - called crew trainers - are mostly university students or recent graduates in STEM fields - science, technology, engineering or math. They were strapped into a mock cockpit coming in for a Mars landing and sat behind computers as flight controllers for the Mars mission. They launched small rockets and got the feel of walking in space while dangling from the ceiling in harnesses or scuba diving in a water tank smaller but similar to what astronauts once used for practice. Nearly 1,000 campers from around the globe swarmed the rocket center during a typical week this summer. Space Campers sometimes leave bananas at her tombstone. Miss Baker, the squirrel monkey who preceded Mercury astronauts into space in 1959, is buried at the U.S. “It’s probably the most scientific small town in America,” said retired Apollo program worker Billy Neal, a volunteer docent who shed his white lab coat for that night’s Biergarten. Beverages included T-Minus, a locally made, tangerine-flavored beer. Engineers and their families mobbed a recent one. German-style beer gardens are hosted beneath the Saturn V every Thursday evening, spring to fall. This little part right here,” Hickam said, laughing, as he pointed to the capsule at the tip of the 363-foot-long rocket, stretching horizontally in its massive exhibit hall. “You look at all this whole great big Saturn V, and the only part that Houston was responsible for was, I don’t know. Hickam’s 1998 memoir “Rocket Boys” became the movie “October Sky.” “We’re looking to the future, really looking to travel in space, trying to figure out the problems of living and working in space,” Barnhart said.ĭespite Huntsville’s role, author Homer Hickam, a longtime Huntsville resident who’s now retired from NASA, sees Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Houston getting most of the attention when it comes to space travel. Ongoing research aims to return astronauts to the moon and on to Mars. “We’re all space geeks and we love it,” Barnhart said.īut Hunstville isn’t just about history. 1 paid tourist attraction, with bus tours into the restricted Redstone and Marshall, and wild rocket-style rides like Space Shot and G-Force Accelerator. Space and Rocket Center’s executive director. The DNA from America’s original rocket force still permeates Huntsville, according to Deborah Barnhart, the U.S. Huntsville plans to shoot up thousands of little rockets in commemoration. The 50th anniversary of those first moon steps is next July. The Eagle has landed,” words spoken by astronaut Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon with Buzz Aldrin. Its address? One Tranquility Base, Huntsville. He didn’t live long enough to see Space Camp open in 1982 at the rocket center, but since then, 800,000 youngsters and grown-up space fans have attended daylong, weekend or weeklong sessions with space, robotics and aviation themes. Why band camp, football camp and cheerleading camp, but no science camp, he wondered. Von Braun planted the seed for Space Camp as well. Space and Rocket Center, an official NASA tourist spot that houses one of only three remaining Saturn V moon rockets, this one a National Historic Landmark. It was von Braun, Marshall’s first director, who wanted to showcase Huntsville’s rocket development and testing.
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