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New Records for Midnight Rescue on the Voyager!

Today two records were set in the Voyager for our school mission “Midnight Rescue”.
Eaglecrest Elementary sent two of its sixth grade classes for our regular field trip.
There were 32 students in each class. While one class takes the astronomy lesson and planetarium presentation the other class is in the simulators. The AM mission started right on time. The captain seemed rather confident. “I play a lot of strategy games,” he told me as I was setting him up with his radio headphones. “As if that will help,” I thought to myself. It was rather cynical but this is the time of year with I get that way.

The mission started. The captain impressed me. He stayed focused and attentive. He paid attention to detail and listened. His decisions were spot on. He seemed to know what to do in every situation. When all was said and done they ended with a 0 score!
A perfect score is -3. They beat the record set by Deerfield Elementary.

The afternoon crew boarded the simulator at 11:45 A.M. They were great kids.
I hesitated to score them. I didn’t want them to leave with 7 strikes and have to hear about the 0 score from the other class while on the bus for 40 minutes. The mission started and strangely enough they were rolling through with errors. I think the teacher was giving them suggestions on what to say during the debates which helped but not enough for me to disqualify the class. At the end of the mission they also scored a 0!

Two classes from the same school on the same day with 0 scores. I don’t think a day like this will be repeated. Congratulations to Eaglecrest Elementary for a job well done.

Mr. Williamson

The Power of Suggestion

Magellan Simulator Security Officers Discuss Options with Staff

By Alex A.
Space Center Programming Guild

A few weeks back, I was doing bridge on the voyager. This was a slightly older group (about 14-15 years old) and they were running 'Midnight Rescue.' They were doing a pretty good job, and eventually transported the New Earth engineer (Sierra, a Central worker) onboard. The security quickly dispatched her and brought her up to the brig. After a few minutes, the engineer stirred and the security officer quickly grabbed his interrogation papers and began badgering the helpless engineer. The engineer curled up in the corner and didn't say a word. Discouraged, the security officer emerged from the brig and walked up to me. He said "What am I doing wrong? She won't tell me a thing!" I thought for a moment, and then told him "Well, maybe you are being too harsh with her. She might feel more comforted if you talk to her kindly." I told him to act like his best friends mom would act to him. He stood there for a moment, probably thinking "He wants me to do that!?! He's crazy!" But eventually he walked back to the brig with his clipboard and warily stepped in. The engineer looked up at him, and then resumed her original position. He walked closer to her and said something like "Are you alright? It's okay, don't worry." Remember that this is a 14-15 year old guy. I smiled and returned to the bridge. A few minutes later I decided to check up on the conversation and saw the security officer crouched down next to her, talking with the engineer in that same soothing voice. I saw a few of the questions filled in on his clipboard. It amazed me that I was able to make this security officer warm up to this engineer so much by just telling him to.

I guess that is all.

Alex A