The Odyssey, Galileo, and Falcon Starship Logos That Never Made it. Salute the Cassini Saturn Probe. It Ventures Into that Last Goodnight on Friday. The Imaginarium.

Hello Troops,
     I have some Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center trivia for you this afternoon.  
Many of you are familiar with the CMSEC's simulator pins currently available for purchase at the Space Center. But did you know that during the Space Center's Voyager Age (1990 - 2012) the simulator logo pins were awarded to volunteers and staff for passing that simulator's bridge and second chair positions (except the Galileo of course. It didn't have a bridge pass).  I was strict on pin enforcement. Sure, anyone could buy a simulator pin, but the privilege of wearing the pin on your ID Lanyard while at the Space Center was forbidden without that ship's bridge and second chair pass. 
     I asked Dave Daymont to put forward simulator logo designs for review and comment.  The Odyssey, Magellan, Galileo, and Phoenix Set Directors had a say in the final decisions. Some of Dave's designs went through on first glance (Voyager, Phoenix) while others went through a few changes before the Set Directors gave the green light. 
     Here are the simulator logo designs that didn't survive the vetting process.

This was Dave's first Odyssey logo.  It carried the name of the ship in both English and Greek. The lines in the background represented the many missions the simulator had done and had yet to do.  The date was the Odyssey's launch year.  

The Galileo had two rejections.  The number 5 represented the number on the side of the simulator

And Finally, the logo and pin that was never produced - The Falcon.  The Falcon was our second cafeteria ship and used only on the overnight camps.  The Galileo occupied the west side of Central Elementary's cafeteria. The Falcon ran on the eastern side. The Falcon was inside one of our Starlab Planetarium inflatable star domes.  

The Falcon's Logo - the pin that never was.

The Falcon and Crew on an Overnight Camp. Bill Schuler Flight Director

Mark Daymont Flight Directing the Falcon on another Overnight Camp

Another brave Falcon overnight crew.

The Falcon even had volunteers for the Overnight Camps. Spencer Dauwalder and Taylor Herring

Salute the Cassini Saturn Probe. It Ventures Into that Last Goodnight on Friday

     What would it look like to approach Saturn in a spaceship? One doesn't have to just imagine -- the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along the way, and hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit. Some of Cassini's early images have been digitally tweaked, cropped, and compiled into the featured inspiring video which is part of a larger developing IMAX movie project named In Saturn's Rings. 

     In the concluding sequence, Saturn looms increasingly large on approach as cloudy Titan swoops below. With Saturn whirling around in the background, Cassini is next depicted flying over Mimas, with large Herschel Crater clearly visible. Saturn's majestic rings then take over the show as Cassini crosses Saturn's thin ring plane. Dark shadows of the ring appear on Saturn itself. 

     Finally, the enigmatic ice-geyser moon Enceladus appears in the distance and then is approached just as the video clip ends. 

     The Cassini spacecraft itself, low on fuel, is scheduled to end on Friday when it will be directed to approach so close to Saturn that it falls in and melts.

The Imaginarium