"An Experience I'll Never Forget": 

Devon Couch at Space Camp

Space Camp was an experience I'll never forget. From the moment myself and Ben Mannisto arrived in Huntsville, Alabama it was nothing short of amazing. The week was filled with interesting classes, fun activities, and lots of opportunities to get to know people from all around the world.

There were about 100 people attending space camp that week, and they were split into five teams. My team was Acidalia, named after a plain on Mars. On my team there were people from Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Greece, Mexico, Colombia, Belgium, the United Kingdom and all of the United States.

There were a variety of classes throughout the week, all of them very interesting. There were classes about the history of space flight, space exploration systems, and even about non-­governmental space programs.

There was also a handful of engineering challenged, my favourite being the rocket building one. We were given the task of building a homemade rocket with limited time and resources. Doesn't seem to hard at first, you are provided with the right material to create a basic rocket. The only catch, your rocket had to house an egg, and this egg had to survive the launch, flight, and landing of your rocket. After about 400 drawings and a 20 minute debate on what we should name our team, (we went with CANZSA+1, the Canadian Australian New Zealand Space Agency Plus One) we started actually building our rocket. At this point we had wasted half of the time we had to construct our rocket, and this only got worse when after 10 minutes of building

The infamous rocket

(the only thing we managed to do in those 10 minutes was realize our plan wasn't going to work) someone came up with the idea of having a logo, and another 20 minutes went down the drain.

Somehow we managed to finish our rocket. Then came launch day. The launch may not have been pretty, but it worked. The landing on the other hand, let's just say our parachute may not have worked perfectly. It doesn't matter how many cotton balls you have protecting an egg, when it comes crashing into the ground with no parachute, it doesn't survive.

You also got to choose between pilot training and mission specialist training. I chose to do the pilot training, and it was an amazing time. We learned about the principals of flight, and some basic survival tips. We got to experience 3.2 g’s in the centrifuge, which is basically a giant arm that spins a 2 person capsule that's on the end of it. We then got to go into the F­-18 simulators, were we spent some time learning how all the controls worked. Once we mastered taking off, landing and maneuvering in the air, we were able to spend a few hours simulating air­-to­-air combat.

Probably the most exciting part of Space Camp was the simulated missions. There were three of them in total, 2 that were 1 hour space shuttle missions. During these missions there were 3 groups you could be in,the ISS (International Space Station) where space science was being done, aboard the space shuttle, or in MOCR (Mission Operations Control Room). During our first mission I was in MOCR acting as the GNC, the Guidance, Navigation and Control Systems Engineer. My job was to make sure the shuttle changed direction when it needed to and didn't drift off course. Our mission went well, as good as it could go since instead of closing the large payload bay doors on the shuttle, when the commander was asked to close the doors, he went down the ladder and shut the hatch that lead to the payload bay. For our second mission I was the Pilot in the space shuttle. There was one thing we knew going into this mission. One of the 2 missions always has an abort, and since the last one didn't, it was a matter of what kind it would be. There are 4 types of aborts, RTLS (Return to Launch Site), TAL (Transoceanic Abort Landing), AOA (Abort Once Around), and ATO (Abort to Orbit). There were 2 we knew we wouldn't do, RTLS and ATO. This was because a RTLS had never been successfully completed in the simulator and no matter how over confident me and the Commander were they wouldn't let us do it. Also it results in a very short mission since you abort shortly after lift off. An ATO requires another shuttle to come retrieve the crew so we knew we wouldn't do that either. We ended up doing an AOA, and even after a poor approach I managed to perfectly land the shuttle. This may have had something to do with the training, but it was probably because we had "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty playing in the background.

Recieving wings from astronaut
Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger

Our last mission was the EDM or Extended Duration Mission. This was a 3 hour simulated Mars mission. There were again 3 groups to be in, Mission Control, the Orion capsule heading to Mars, or in the Ouranos base on Mars’s largest moon Phobos. I was the pilot of the Orion capsule during this mission. This mission was tons of fun. It was made especially fun because of the many, mainly mental, medical anomalies. This most memorable of these was after we arrived on Mars, and our Commander decided that Mission Control was stressing everyone out. He decided to turn of all the mics and speakers for communication and lead the entire Orion crew through a yoga class.

All in all Space Camp was something I could never forget. The incredible time I had and the friends I made from all around the world made this a truly unique and exciting experience.

"Experience of a Lifetime": 

Ben Mannisto's Space Camp Experience

This summer I had the experience of a lifetime. Myself and Devon Couch were selected to take part in a week of International Space Camp, in Huntsville, Alabama. This week was compiled of classes on various subjects, experiments demonstrating space science, activities based on astronaut training, and simulated NASA missions. Along with us there were representatives from 17 other countries.

The 100 or so students who attended international week were split into 5 teams. My team, Elysium, had people from Australia, Taiwan, New Zealand, Bulgaria, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, England, Canada, and of course people from all over the United States.

The classes my team partook in covered many, highly interesting, subjects ranging from Russian space history to emergency first aid in space. I learned about robotics and space food, astronomy and space suit dynamics, the ISS and ground control.

These classes were often followed by experiments. These experiments demonstrated many different things, and were often in the form of challenges. Our teams were tasked with anything from designing a space suit, to purifying mars water. I learned how to protect an egg from the heat of reentry using a hand made heat shield, and that if an egg's heat shield fails and it heats up too quickly, it may explode. One of these experiments involved designing a rover to drive over a series of obstacles using a lego robotics kit, another found us trying to protect an apple from radiation.

These scientific challenges were complemented with more physical ones. My team was often brought to ‘Area 51”, which contained a climbing wall, team building activities, and the “pamper pole” (a telephone pole with handholds for climbing). We were also treated to a multi axis simulator, which spins you in a bunch of different directions without you getting dizzy.  

We also had our path specific activities. Before the camp began everyone had to choose one of two paths, Pilot or Mission Specialist. These would help decide the type of experience you had at the camp. I chose the Mission Specialist path. This meant that I would be doing scuba diving. The diving was a truly incredible experience, we dove in a 40 foot replica of the actual astronaut training tank. In the tank we lifted 100 pound balls with only one pinky, played basketball with bowling balls, and attempted to throw water toys underwater, which is not as easy as it sounds. They even had specialized speakers to play music underwater, which was rather neat.

All of this training led up to our simulated missions. In our first two missions we were placed in one of three groups: ground control, the space shuttle, and the ISS (international space station) for 1 hour. Those in the shuttle had to go through a mission abort and land the shuttle after it launched, ground control had to walk them through this, and while all of this chaos was going on those in the ISS did space science. On my first mission I was in the ISS, and on my second I was in ground control.

The third and final mission was called an EDM or extended duration mission. These were simulated missions to Mars and they lasted 3 hours. This mission was also separated into three groups: Ground Control, Orion Space Capsule, and the Ouranos base on Mars’s largest moon Phobos. Those in the Orion capsule were tasked with landing on Mars and setting up a base there, Ground Control would help walk them through this. Those on Ouranos had a variety of positions, The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) had to ensure everyone everywhere was healthy, the two weather specialists had to study weather on mars, the two flight engineers had to fix ammonia tanks and drive a rover, and the Extravehicular activity officer had to help the flight engineers fix the tanks.

This was all made difficult by a number of medical anomalies given to us by the people directing the mission. These were medical problems that could be physical or mental. A few of them were: the fear of the colour white (everything was painted white), Kleptomania, OCD causing the person to flip every switch (including the oxygen supply), drug overdose, everyone in the Orion capsule breaking their arms in lift off, and many more. Even with all of these obstacles we still managed to complete the mission successfully, we were later told we were the best of the week, and the first to fully complete the mission.

Overall, Space camp was an incredible experience. I met great people and made friends all over the world. I learned many things, and experienced things I couldn’t do anywhere else. Space camp was thoroughly enjoyable and came with memories I will never forget.