A Stumble Down Memory Lane.

Hello Troops,
We survived the largest Overnight Camp in the Space Center's History on Friday. Our max. is 45 campers for any given camp. We had 51 show up Friday night. They just kept coming and coming and coming. In the end there were ten not on the lists sent by the schools. I had a choice to make. I could either call the parents of the ten disputed students and have them come to collect them, or I could find a way to let them stay.

I played out each phone call in my imagination. I didn't even know I knew the swear words my imagination conjured up coming from each of the ten parent's mouths. Thirty seconds into this "What If" scenario I had to shift mental gears and go to my 'happy place' to slow my racing heart and lower my blood pressure. I knew I couldn't make those calls.

I looked at my older staff. They were looking at me, wondering what my decision would be. I wanted to send ten home, but who would I order to make the calls and handle the phone rage? Who would I have do the very thing I was terrified of doing? Who was on my butt kicking list for having missed work or coming to work not properly dressed? Who deserved to spend an hour listening to language not fit to print in any dictionary, language so foul the nation's alert level would surge upon detecting the hatred spilling through the cell towers and phone circuits?

Each of them were looking at me with the same drooping, helpless eyes a dog gives its master after having wet on the carpet and not wanting a whooping with the evening's newspaper. In the end I abandoned the idea. I realized if I had one of them make those fateful calls I would be hauled before a United Nations Tribunal in the Netherlands for Crimes Against Humanity.

"OK, we won't send them home," I announced.
"What are we going to do with ten extra kids?" Mr. Daymont asked. I wanted to say "Give them to you" but knew the shock would cause an instantaneous loss of blood to his brain causing a physical collapse in front of 51 campers.
I thought back to the last time we had large numbers, remembered what I did and made the pronouncement. "We take 31 of them and split them into two teams. One team does a Voyager 2.5 hour mission while the other does the same in the Magellan. They switch ships at 10:20 P.M. The Voyager can do a school field trip mission. They're designed for larger groups on the Bridge."

The staff liked the idea, what choice did they have?

The campers were delightful. They were excited to be at camp and had no problems doing whatever we asked. We all got through the camp unscathed thanks to an awesome staff and brilliant campers.

What can be said of my performance? I went and hid behind my desk for most of the night after dividing the kids into their ships. There are times in a teacher's career when hiding behind our desks is warranted. I just crawled into that little space reserved for my feet and stayed there until the world seemed normal again. If the staff asks, I tell them I dropped a thumb tack. Everyone knows you can't leave a lost thumb tack laying around, especially with a staff that likes to wonder shoeless at bedtime during an overnight camp.

It's Sunday now and all seems well. This is behind us, we learned from it, and will be all the more ready if it ever happens again.

I was looking through my old photo albums and found a few gems from an Honor's Night held in 2002 I'd like to share with you.

Honor's Night 2002

Rio Downs is being presented a retirement gift. Rio left the Space Center to work as an administrator at the Wendover airport. I suppose her new work turn out to be similar to what she did a the Space Center. Here, she worked on starships packed with eager and excited children ready to win their missions and save the universe for freedom and democracy. In Wendover, she'd be working with airplanes full of eager and excited seniors coming to work the slots to purchase freedom from their woefully inadequate social security.

Lorraine Houston is giving Josh Babb his multiple ship pin. Josh ran the Magellan and the now retired Falcon.

Yes, this is Brady Young, eight years younger receiving his seniority pin. Brady was a Voyager and Magellan Supervisor. Brady is still with us at the Space Center as he works through college. We have to share him with Best Buy. There is no doubt which job he prefers.


Scott Slaugh is on the receiving end of another seniority pin. Now how's this for a hiccup in the fabric of space time? Today Scott is married to the daughter of Dr. Carter, Central's principal and my boss.

Tanner Edwards receiving his pin. Tanner was with us for years and did an excellent job. The Honor's Night was held in the school's cafeteria. The lion painted on the wall is long gone.

Ryan Parsons isn't suffering from hypothermia. The blanket is his reward for volunteering for a whole bunch of hours (I can't remember the exact number which is why I said 'whole bunch'). The blankets were hand sewn by Mrs. Houston.

Look at these young faces. Casey Voeks starts us off on the left, followed by Katie, Megan Warner and Sam Brady. Alex DeBirk is standing in the background. The pillowcases were hand sewn by Mrs. Houston. You earned them for volunteering almost a whole bunch of hours.


Look at our happy volunteers, each holding his or her Year of Service pins. You recognise some of these faces from the previous picture. There are few other faces in this picture you may recognize. BJ Warner is on the far left. Mrs. Clegg is behind him. And who is that next to BJ? Why its a very young Emily Perry (now Paxman).


I'm reading a proclamation of some kind. I'm thinking this is the gathering where I declared myself "God of Flight Directing". By the way, the simulator Falcon was kept in the white boxes you see in the background. We set the ship up every Friday night for the Overnight Camps and took it down every Saturday morning at the camp's completion. One of the Starlab domes covered the boxes and equipment. Some of you old timers may remember the Falcon. It was run by Josh Babb, Stacy Carrol, Bill Schuler and Lorraine Houston.


This picture shows our newest Supervisors. Megan Warner, Jameson McDougal, Wesley Moss, Casey Voeks, Sam Brady, and Rick Cowdell. What an awesome group. Megan is currently on a mission in South Korea. Jameson recently married. Wesley recently returned from a mission to South Dakota, Casey is still with us in addition to working for Olive Garden, Motel 6 and has his own radio show on KTKK. Sam is at BYU. We've lost track of Rick. Anyone have an update?


Two real old timers. Dave Wall, creator and builder of the Odyssey, is shaking hands with James Porter. Today, James is a teacher at the Thomas Edison Charter School in Logan. James is working to create a Space Center at his school. He is married with a baby boy.

Randy Jepperson receiving his seniority pin. Randy recently married and comes to the Space Center from time to time on a Saturday to take the younger staff on in dodgeball.

Thomas Hardin is on the left. Clint Cowdell is in the center very pleased with himself for earning his Black Shirt. Clint became a new volunteer that night. I can't remember the name of the other boy in the photo.


Thomas, Clint and Emily either holding or wearing their black shirts. I believe new volunteers started wearing red shirts (like Thomas) back then. You received your black shirt after volunteering for so long and getting a pass of or two.

Well Troops, let's have another great week at the Space Center.

I look forward working with you in the trenches.

Mr. W.

January 28, 1986. The Challenger Accident

Hello Troops,
Today we pause to honor the seven astronauts that died in the orbiter Challenger during lift off. On board was school teacher Christa McAuliffe.

Crew of mission STS-51 L, lost January 28, 1986

Commander Francis R Scobee

Pilot Michael J Smith

Judith A Resnik

Ellison S Onizuka

Ronald E McNair

Gregory B Jarvis

Sharon Christa McAuliffe

Wreckage of Challenger during recovery from Atlantic ocean.

Thoughts by Mark Daymont
Space Center Educator

While we commemorate the loss of the crew, and recognize the courage of those who explore space and understand the value of the risk, let's also remember why it happened. I'm not talking about the actual failure of the frozen o-ring which allowed hot gas to escape the solid rocket motor. I'm talking about the failure of leadership. Someone was too eager to please superiors and succumbed to the pressure of a schedule, ignoring warnings from those who understood the danger. Seven lives were lost. The failure was doubled later, when those guilty of the failure tried to cover up their mistakes by blaming and persecuting the very engineer and team that warned them about the danger.

May NASA and ATK (formerly Thiokol) never make that mistake again.

Challenger in orbit, picture taken from the SPAS satellite.

After the accident, America endured a period of waiting while engineers and scientists examined the cause of the accident and modified the shuttle boosters so that the same problem would not occur. Let's also remember that there were great sacrifices made by NASA and contractor workers to solve the problems and get us flying again. Eventually, shuttle Discovery returned our nation to space travel.

We need to encourage private companies to continue their work on new launch vehicles and crew capsules which will give us alternatives to just one government launch system. With the competitive nature of Boeing, Lockheed, Space X, and Virgin Galactic, we look forward to a more prosperous space travel scenario.

NASA Remembrance Day

By Mark Daymont
Space Center Educator

Today has been set apart as a Day of Remembrance for the lives lost during the great exploration of Space. Although we specifically honor American lives lost, we also remember the lives lost by the Russian explorers in tragic accidents of the past.

As symbolized in the space patches shown above, we specifically remember the loss of Apollo 1 on the test pad in 1966, the crew of the shuttle Challenger in 1986, and the loss of the crew of the shuttle Columbia in 2003. All these brave men and women were lost due to mechanical errors, and each was different from each other. That means we learn from our mistakes and press on, overcoming the obstacles to achieving the goal of making risky space exploration as safe as we can.

Every year when we commemorate our fallen space explorers, we are told that the explorers felt the risk was worth it. History proves that this is generally true. Closer to Earth, think about the many losses in the past of exploration history. How many voyagers lost their lives to unexpected storms crossing the oceans to discover opportunity in the New World? How many lives have been lost in the attempt to conquer air travel? And don't forget that lives have been lost by explorers who have sought adventure discovering underground passages and treasures.

But today we remember men and women like Ed White (first American to walk in space) who perished in the fire of Apollo 1, Christa McAuliffe (chosen to be America's first teacher in space) who was killed in the Challenger explosion, and Ilan Ramon (first Israeli to fly in space) who died in the breakup of Columbia during re-entry.

While Senators, Representatives, and Presidents argue over how much money to cut from NASA and cannot find a consistent path for our American space program, let's remember the true cost of space exploration and remind ourselves that we cannot let those sacrifices be made in vain. In a year that will see the end of a major space program, let's hope that we may also see the birth of a compelling and exciting new space exploration program.

For more information, go to NASA's website commemorating the losses of our explorers: http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/dor11/