posted 02-07-2012 10:05 PM               

She's been wanting me to go down to Florida and spend time with my parents (alone, so I can do the chores for them that they don't want to 'burden' me with when she's around) and I said I combine the two as they live not THAT far away from the Camp (about a 6 hour drive, I reckon). She was actually checking out the website the very next day and has since talked about it. My God, i might actually get to go!

I also found a recent camp flightsuit that fits as well for dirt cheap.

posted 02-08-2012 08:58 PM               

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Originally posted by Jay Chladek:
Well if you get to go, a new flightsuit I believe is part of the package anyway (or at least an option, but most campers end up buying the flightsuit at the end of the session).

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I've heard that frequent Space Camp attendees often personalize their flight suits anyway. When I was in the Army I often bought better equipment than I was issued (that is really common now).

My parents live in Tallahassee, just south of the Georgia border. I just checked Mapquest and now I know why I never drove up there on a lark when I still lived there. It’s almost exactly 400 miles away.

posted 02-09-2012 12:45 AM               

I patch my Space Camp flightsuits just like the current astronauts do. No other way to do it, in my opinion. I leave off the Mach 25 patch, as we all do, out of respect.

posted 02-09-2012 03:39 AM               

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Originally posted by p51:
It's almost exactly 400 miles away.

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posted 02-09-2012 11:29 PM               

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Originally posted by sts205cdr:
I patch my Space Camp flightsuits just like the current astronauts do.

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From the photos I've seen from Camp online, very few are of the adult program and I can't find a single shot where anyone's flight suit has been changed from the stock patch arrangement. I have been in e-mail contact with Phil Reeder, a Brit who regularly goes to the camp. He told me that generally people don't change the suits all that much but that he did his because he goes so often (swapping out the US flag for a union jack, added patches for the equipment he has used on simulators, stuff like that).

If I wind up going for sure, I'll be putting one of the Max Q '50th anniversary of Americans in orbit' patch where the 25th anniversary of Space Camp patch currently is on the right sleeve of the suit I now have (normally that's where the triangle shuttle patch seems to go). Otherwise, it'll stay stock.

I wouldn't have a shuttle patch on mine if I go to Camp, any more than I'd have an Apollo one. It's such a shame that there is no definitive program in the immediate future, because THAT is the patch I'd put on in such a case.

Phil is currently trying to get a eight-day camp going as there is currently only a three-day one for adults (actually more like two days and a couple of hours the way Phil describes it). He has an interesting blog here.

He's been trying to get me to sign on for the week-long camp, but I couldn't possibly get the time off this year for that and my wife did NOT react favorably to me being gone for more than a week and then it costing at least $1500. We're not exactly living paycheck to paycheck right now (we've been working a lot of overtime since last year) but it's hard even for me to justify that cost.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jay Chladek:
You'll know it when you see it as it has a Saturn 1B standing vertical!

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posted 02-10-2012 07:49 AM            

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Originally posted by Jay Chladek:
If you indeed zip through Chattanooga, then on the drive down I-65 you can plan for a stop at the Alabama Welcome Center right after you cross the border.

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posted 02-10-2012 11:14 AM               

When I was at Space Camp this past August for the Parent/Child Program, I wore a real Launch/Entry Coverall from the pre-51L era. My daughter picked up the current standard issue royal blue flight suit, which was 80 bucks and included her name tag. The kids at Camp didn't comprehend the significance of my suit, but some of the adults sure did! One worker, who has been at the USSRC since the mid-80s remarked "Hey, you must have gone here in the 80s and you wore your suit again. Wait... that looks a little too real."

In my group, only one adult out of 7 bought a suit and 3 out of 7 kids wore them. I did notice nearly all the kids in the week long regular Space Camp program wore suits.

posted 02-10-2012 11:59 AM               

I have recently wound up with four camp flight suits, three of which are the earlier light blue ones. One of them has a tag that ID's it as a real launch/entry suit, which I was surprised to see as it's clearly a camp suit made of cotton.

The camp suits are made from very light material (which makes sense given how flipping hot it gets in that part of the country in the summer) and are loosely based on the Nomex CWU-27P flight suits that are really used. Some of the pockets are made differently than an issue one. For example, the knife pocket isn't the same (not like you'd really need that pocket at Camp anyway) and the sleeve cuffs are different as well as the pleating in the back often isn't the same.

I can get my hands on a real Nomex royal blue CWU-27P flight suit and slap real NASA mission patches on it easily, though not cheaply as the suits can be a bit pricey, around $150 or so when camp suits can be found complete for well under $100 on eBay if you're patient.

Alpha makes a sort-of NASA flight suit that follows no known pattern used by NASA or the military. I bought one not realizing what it really was, so I made a sci-fi flight suit out of it. I'd tell anyone to steer well clear of it because it's not a copy of anything and they are sized much smaller than they are marked. They're not cheap, either.

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Originally posted by Greggy_D:
I wore a real Launch/Entry Coverall from the pre-51L era.

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I guess my only issue with me doing the same thing personally is that I would be self-conscious about people thinking I was either a real astronaut or trying to pass myself off as one. Heck, when I wear my modified Alpha crew jacket that I bought at the KSC gift shop, people routinely think I'm either an astronaut or work at NASA. It happens almost every time I've worn it in public and on a few occasions,

I've had to argue with people that I'm just a fan of the program and NOT an astronaut (seriously, who would argue that they weren't an astronaut if they were?). Maybe I just have the type of 'look' of a current mission specialist or it's the way I carry myself due to my prior military experience, I don't know what it is.

But I'd be sure that whatever I wore to camp would have the camp patches on it because I'd hate it if someone thought I was trying to pass myself off as the real deal.

posted 02-17-2012 09:52 PM               

The odd part is that my wife was telling her sister and brother-in-law last weekend that I was going, and they thought it was pretty cool. I expected them to give me grief over doing something you'd normally think was just for kids. Never underestimate the power of the cool factor of space, I guess.

I have a new-condition camp flight suit that I'm going to replace the US flag patch with a more correct larger white-bordered one, as well as swapping out the shuttle patch for one of the MaxQ 50th anniversary of space flight patches. I've been told by a couple of people who have gone there that you must buy a flight suit if you want to keep one, so it made sense to me to have one tricked out like I wanted, ahead of time.

I'm not going nuts and swapping everything out, just a couple of patches to give it what I feel will be a far better 'look'. I actually stumbled across a more well-used extra one and grabbed it, too. I intend on putting real mission patches on that one and making it look like a real crew suit (I won't be putting my extra 'Mach 25' patch on it, though), for Halloween or something like that. I intend on putting the two mission patches of the launches I saw from a great distance (STS-33 and STS-51). Heck, I might take that one with me to camp as well, just for the heck of it.

Does anyone have any suggestions for someone going for the first time? Do they send you anything to read up on before you go? Three days doesn't sound like much time to get up to speed on anything.

I'd only recently discovered there had been a Space Camp near KSC. I hadn't known that before, and I grew up in Florida, only ever hearing of the Huntsville facility. When my parents, wife and I were at the Astronaut Hall of Fame building this past September, I jumped into the centrifuge there (hey, there was no line and I didn't have pay extra, why wouldn't I?). At that time, I had no idea that was part of the training equipment they kept in the building after the camp had closed.

posted 02-18-2012 06:48 AM               

When I went, it was a three-day camp with two missions, each about two hours. Important assignments like commander, pilot and mission director required advance knowledge, so first thing on Day 1 was to take a multiple-choice 25-question test. Those with the highest scores got the most important assignments on one mission; on the other, you basically monitored a console because you had a lot of studying to do.

Those with minimal knowledge wound up with two medium-range assignments, e.g. Mission Control on one and maybe a spacewalk on the other.

Space Camp used to have facilities in Huntsville, Titusville, Moffett Field and other places, but they almost went bankrupt a few years ago due to bad decisions by the CEO at the time. So I believe it's down to Huntsville now. Titusville has been converted into Camp KSC run by Delaware North, which has the KSC Visitor Complex contract. I think that's just a one-day gig, nothing like the three-day Space Camp.

posted 02-19-2012 06:16 PM               

The questions as I recall were rudimentary trivia ones in combination with shuttle based ones (what is the angle of approach for the shuttle? for instance). I suppose they still do that since the process seemed to be in use when Mike's kids did their visit in 1989 (and the book version of "A Smile as Big as the Moon" went pretty in depth into the program since Mike and his assistant did a teachers based adult camp a year before the kids went).

Given we are moving beyond shuttle, I don't know what Huntsville has in store today. But I imagine shuttle based questions are still going to be somewhat high on the list.

I would say one of the most important things is to keep yourself well rested with your sleep cycle in check because they are going to PACK your days when there. Every waking minute when you aren't eating will probably be filled with something. Most important thing is to just have fun but try to treat it as serious as you can. But don't be wound up too tight.

If they are allowing people to wear the older suits, I'll have to see about trying to obtain an adult sized version of my 1985 vintage flight suit (or at least the patches) if I ever go back. I don't want to necessarily carve up my old one except as a last resort.

posted 02-19-2012 06:26 PM               

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Originally posted by Mr Meek:
The I-65 welcome center is between Huntsville and Nashville, not Huntsville and Chattanooga. It's still a gorgeous drive from Chattanooga to Huntsville, but it's rocket-free until you see the Saturn V at the USSRC.

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posted 02-19-2012 06:45 PM               

On a few occasions I was permitted to visit and take part in several of their simulators and mockups here in Titusville (at both locations).

Most of my time there was either making deliveries, involved in meetings, participating in their functions, and visiting workers and astronauts there.

posted 02-19-2012 09:51 PM            

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Originally posted by Jay Chladek:
But for another one I've been pondering doing a book related version based on the "Mach 25" and "100 days" patches worn by the astronauts to commemorate some milestone of space book writing. Hmmm, "300 pages" perhaps?

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posted 02-20-2012 10:19 AM               

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Originally posted by FFrench:
Jay, if you do that, sign me up for one!

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posted 03-09-2012 10:01 PM               

Recently, I decided I was going to get my own camp flight suit ahead of time and found one cheaply off eBay. It had the 25th anniversary patch where the triangle shuttle one normally used to be, so I took that off and decided to put a more correct NASA 'meatball' patch below it to replace the one that was there. The very next day, I was looking through some of my old Army patches in my collection (my primary hobby is researching and collecting US WW2 stuff) and I found the very same patches she'd put on that shirt back in 1982!

posted 04-09-2012 10:44 PM               

Is Space Camp only in Hunstville now? I remember when I was little I wanted to go, but at the time I was told the one in Florida was going under and my parents didn't want me leaving the state for a five day event. Guess it just didn't fit into my schedule back then.

posted 04-10-2012 02:49 PM               

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Originally posted by englau:
Is Space Camp only in Hunstville now?

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There are other space camps throughout the country, and for our money, the ones sponsored by the Kansas Cosmosphere are incredible, not only for the experience, but for the value. They have two or three levels "onside" in Hutchinson, but Level III campers get taken down to JSC for five days and get to go places and see things the general public doesn't; Level IV goes down to KSC for an engineering/technical week, and Level V goes out to California and tours the Jet Propulsion Center plus several private spaceflight test facilities.

posted 04-10-2012 09:59 PM               

Falcon lacked the visual replication of USSRC's Shuttle simulator flightdeck(s), but the ride was fun and challenging. They also used the same Binary Star flight software used at USSRC. I had a blast, along with the rest of my USSRC veterans!

And then there's the museum, which should not be missed by any space fan. I still cherish my autograph of Max Ary on my Falcon checklist. He signed it "Max Ary, Apollo 18." There's a story behind that...

posted 09-28-2012 01:11 AM               

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Originally posted by dogcrew5369:
In 1987 I experienced Space Camp a number of times as a 16 year old....on HBO.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jay Chladek:
The cake on the ET and SRBs looks great Lee. Not everybody can do a 3D view like that on the fly.

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posted 09-28-2012 01:27 PM               

My co-workers scoffed when I told them I was going, but once I got back everyone had questions and admired me for doing it. It something I still think about to this day and whenever anyone comes into my office and sees my “Space Academy” wings and photos of my group in our flight suits, I start telling all my stories again. We “flew” 4 short training missions and one all day final mission. In between there was never a moment’s rest as we tried the various simulators, rode an actual centrifuge, built and flew our own model rockets, and even climbed a 40 pole. We even got to meet Ed Buckbee, the author of "The Real Space Cowboys". It was a non-stop week.

posted 09-28-2012 10:56 PM               

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Originally posted by JSC01:
P51, those are great pics, thanks for sharing!

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