Mission Log Day 5

July 27, 2026

Woke up to rain, that ended before camp really started (ok, it ended before I had to hike across the campus in the rain).  Breakfast was followed by Alpha Training for the Space Shuttle mission.   Pat (Australia) was selected as shuttle commander; I was shuttle pilot, Monika (Poland) was ISS scientist, and the others were in mission control (I can’t remember their exact titles, I was a little focused on my job).   First, we learned about our jobs and oriented ourselves to the thousands of buttons and switches I was in charge of (ok, maybe it was only a couple hundred).   Training went fast and I was nervous about not looking like a fool in front of my other team members.

Then a hike across campus to the educator building for a game of “Did you know …” about many of the different space companies in the world.  It was a very interesting lesson, and we thought we knew a lot of things. Yet, we were actually wrong about most of the them.

Then we met the author of Rocket Boys (Homer Hickman) and listened to him tell us stories that were not in the book or movie (October Sky).   Each of the teachers received a signed copy of his book.   It is an excellent read and will be read again very soon by me.

The staff from the U.S. Cyber Camp presented a lesson on cybersecurity and AI.   This camp is one of four different camps offered by the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville.   They also have a Space Robotics Camp and an Aviation Challenge camp.   We will get to play with a space robot in the Mars mission and tomorrow we will do the water challenge from the Aviation camp.

My afternoon started with a hike to the test rocket range to launch the rockets we built yesterday.   My rocket launched way high (out of sight for a bit), and the parachute didn’t blow, so it was just a pretty lawn dart.   But it was recoverable – not everyone was able to recover theirs (they landed in trees or on power lines).

Then came – the Space Shuttle mission (EEK).

There was a movie in the 1986 called Space Camp.   It was one of my favorite movies as a teenager.  I watched it enough that I wore the VHS tape out (yes, I just gave away my age, didn’t I).  I promise, I just lived out some of the scenes from that movie!   We were in the same shuttle module and some of those scenes played out in my mind throughout the mission.

Back to the mission.  Mission started out great, I was able to do my part, I got the cargo bay doors opened in time (big accomplishment), and our mission specialists (Justin and Erica) crawled out the airlock to perform their EVA task of fixing the tiles on the shuttle.   But, they may have taken a little too long on their task and well, you know … it was time for next task, I had to follow the tasks in front of me, others were waiting, and well … Pat and I may have closed the Cargo Bay Doors while they were doing the EVA and left them out in deep space … sorry Justin and Erica.   And the Shuttle landed with no hiccups and a smooth landing (sigh). 
Hopefully, nothing like that happens on the Mars mission.

Back to the educator building for a lecture on the Benefits of Space (some neat videos in this one to share later).   Final task of the day was MGS (multi gravity simulation) (ie Moon/Mars bounce).   This was a lot of fun, the video should be good – but there was a girl issue, you will just have to ask me in private.  Boys had issues too, but very different ones.   That is all I am saying on that.   But it was fun and I went a lot higher that I expected.

Tomorrow is Mar Mission training and Water day!   Woohoo!

(Pictures are fewer – I am waiting on the Space Camp account to publish.  They are constantly around taking photos and videos)
​
💫🚀⭐Ad Astra ⭐🚀💫