Mission Log Day 2

July 24, 2026

Trip to downtown Huntsville, to look for little (little) Artemis rockets throughout the city.  I thought it would be easy, my team of 5 young men & I didn’t find any!!!   In all fairness, we did find one by accident in a picture I took of a pretty mural.   And to make matters worse – I had 2 USA team members, we had our phones and google maps and still only found 1 of the 10 Artemis rockets.

One of the young men in my group (Adam from UK) had a goal before Space Camp started – drink a sweet tea (check), eat at Chick-Fil A (check), and go to a Wal-Mart.   One of our directors helped him with his goal and took him to Wal-Mart.   She told him $10 and 15 minutes (later he told me – he bought a bunch of junk food and his buddy rolled his eyes and told me it was way too much junk) LOL

Then back to the hotel for some cards before lunch.   What card games do a group of international students play, you ask – Spoons (until it got too loud), Garbage (although it was called something else that I won’t say), and Camingo (a tamed down version of Dutch), don’t worry – I corrupted the UK team and taught them the American (NCS) version (LOL).

Lunch was pizza and the sweets exchange (or as I call it – a sugar buffet).   Needless to say, I have a bag full of candy to bring home and I have NO IDEA what any of it is.

Dinner was nice, teachers were able to sit and talk about our schools (see below for details).   Then we introduced our international friends to an American Mall (think Pinnacle Hills or the Landing).  Each teacher took a group and went wherever the students wanted to go within our 1-hour time limit.

My group of girls wanted to go to Barnes & Noble (we didn’t make it), Old Navy, and Ulta.   Old Navy was fine, but Ulta is where they really wanted to go.   And the girls from Australia really liked it and found lots of things to buy.

Some groups (with the boys) found the Lego store, some went to Barnes and Noble, or Dicks Sporting Goods (where an AMERICAN FOOTBALL was purchased so, they can play catch this week).

My 3 other teacher cohorts & I discussed education in their countries:

Keith – Team UK – is the mentor for the Aerospace Engineering internship program at Farnborough College.  It is for students 16-18, who are there by choice.  However, they don’t make wise decisions about their time there. (sounds familiar).   He oversees a 3-year program:  Year 1 students work at an engineering firm for 4 days and have school for 1 day each week; Year 2 students work 1 day, then school for 4 days and must pass exam 1 by end of the year; Year 3 students study 5 days (independently – no instruction, just a required set of information to learn and must pass multiply exams to become an aerospace engineer.

Monika – Team Poland – her school has around 300 students, PreK to age 19 and she teaches chemistry.  They have a lot of Ukraine families that are in her school because of the war.

​Yuliia – Team Ukraine – is an administrator in an extra school (academy), students who want to learn more come there in the evenings and weekends to get extra learning in math, science, or English.

Pili – Team Chile – wins the prize for WOW or UGH depending on how you look at it.   Remember, she rides an hour each way to school and her school day is 8 am to 6 pm, lunch is 1 ½ hours (don’t leave campus)

​Pat – Team Australia – is actually in school session right now and missing classes; everyone else is on Holiday (break)

💫🚀⭐Ad Astra ⭐🚀💫