HopeKids and the Space Center

Hello Troops,
The following is an email received recently from a parent of one of the Hopekids who attended the special missions we ran for them two weeks ago.

I want to thank the staff and volunteers who made the evening a success. Honestly, do you know of any place on Earth where so much human awesomeness exists in such a concentrated space? The astronauts in the International Space Station must see this place glowing on pure 100% creative fuel when all the ships are running as they orbit the Earth.

I'm proud to be associated with such fine people past and present.

Mr. W.

Dear Space Center,
Hi! I just wanted to send you a little note to thank you for letting my son and Hopekids come enjoy space camp. My 10 year old son, Austin, has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy which is 100% fatal with no treatment or cure. He wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. He absolutely loved coming to this activity and has talked about it for days. Hopekids is a really special organization to us, especially since Austin stopped walking 1 year ago. He can no longer go to friends homes to play and finds himself trying to keep up with friends. Hopekids gives us the gift of being together and participating in activities that Austin can participate in and gets him out of the house. We love Hopekids and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting us. Our live are definitely enriched through everyday angels like you!

Thanks again,

Karalee
(Austin's Mom)

Rough Seas Ahead

Hello Troops,
This is day two of two busy days at the Space Center. Double field trips yesterday and today mean four classes will keep us engaged until 6:00 P.M. Private missions start after the last school bus leaves. Some of us will emerge from the this grueling herculean task unscathed. Others, chained to their stations until the last bus disappears into the dark of night, will leave the Center bruised, unwashed, dishevelled and smelling heavily of human child and musty Voyager uniforms.

Our school's principal spent time and effort scrubbing the school's faculty room for today's principal's meeting with the Alpine School District's Superintendent. She left this note on the Space Center's white board: "NO ONE GOES INTO THE FACULTY ROOM FOR ANY REASON. I CLEANED IT FOR A MEETING". Knowing I suffer from selective memory syndrome, she told the night custodian to find me after my last mission and tell me not to let anyone use the faculty room.

Thirty minutes later....... The bus driver for the 2:00 P.M. field trip walked into the office.
"Do you have a microwave. I'm starving."

It was 5:30 P.M. She had another thirty minutes to wait before our field trip ended, then a 45 minute drive taking the students back to their school in Salt Lake City. The microwave was in the faculty room. I hesitated, remembering the principal's note on the white board behind me.

"Sure," I replied. I wasn't going to say no. How could using the microwave mess up the faculty room?

She didn't cook a Lean Cuisine or a Hot Pocket. She burned a bag of popcorn! The faculty room stunk to high heaven of burned popcorn. The school's hallways smelled of burned popcorn. We went into disaster clean up mode. I set up fans and left instructions for our night custodian to wash the tables and walls with the strongest disinfectant legally sold.

Now I get to return to school and smell the results. My fingers are crossed. If that smell isn't gone I'll be in deep trouble. Yes, even Mr. Williamson has a boss and I think I'm in for it today. I'll be cleaning toilets and raking leaves for the next two weeks.

Perhaps its time for a few things from the Imaginarium:

The Berlin Subway? If not, it should be.

Who says you can't improve on an existing design. The Rocking Chair reinvented.




Live Live Differently.


I know the feeling. We deal with small humans daily.

Again, Imagination and perfection in design.

The Space Center Twenty One Years Ago.

Hello Troops,
Last week marked the 21st birthday of our Space Education Center. To commemorate the event I'm posting pictures taken a week before the Space Center opened on November 8, 1990.

We start with the Space Center's Office, also known to us old timers as its original name "The Briefing Room".


This is looking toward the front of the room. Principal Stan Harward is standing in the room's doorway. On the right are the original classroom coat hangers and cubbies for student's belongings (the Phoenix sits there today). The cubbies were removed a few years later and staff bunks were built in their place. The big screen TV is roughly where the Phoenix's main viewer sits today. You can see the white board, still on the wall in its exact same place after 21 years. The tables and chairs are used today in Discovery. The Briefing Room was first used for the classroom session of the field trip.


The Staff Board was at the front of the Briefing Room. We had nine volunteers when the Center opened in 1990. I was the only person on the payroll. The first picture is of Jeff Schoonover. Today Jeff is the principal of Provo High School. His children attend Central School. Kyle Sanderson's pictures comes next. He is a math teacher and Asst. Football Coach at Pleasant Grove High. Jake Mattson is next. He lives in Las Vegas with his wife and four children. Burke Craghead is next followed by Tony Grover. Tony is a lawyer in Salt Lake City with two children. I can't make out or remember who the person is at the end.



Recognize the sink? Its not there anymore. How about the drawers? Yep, this is the where the Odyssey's Control Room sits today. The Gift Shop used to sit right here.

The Briefing Room looking toward the Voyager's entrance.


The back of the Briefing Room before the Odyssey. My desk is next to the filing cabinets. The mural was done on butcher paper by our Young Astronaut Club. To the far left you'll see the doorway to the library, today's home of you know who! Notice my less than comfy desk chair.



This was the bulletin board behind my desk at the back of the room. That bulletin board covered the hole in the wall that today leads to the Odyssey's Engineering Section.

And now, we move on into the Voyager Mission Simulator (as it was called then).


The short doorway was still a hazard as it is today. Notice there is no Captain's Loft. That was added a few years later.


Now a turn into the unfinished Voyager Control Room.


Then down to the Crew Quarters. Same red counter top


And up the spiral staircase to the Voyager's Bridge. This is the original furniture. We opened without raised platforms for the Captain's, Security and Record's stations. They were added only after I discovered the students sitting at those positions couldn't see the Tactical Screen. The box in the picture sits where today's Engineering Station is located. The box was the home of the original Robotic Arm (an idea I tried to import from the Challenger Centers).

In this photograph you see the Captain's desk in the distance. In the foreground right is Security. Foreground left is Records. You'll also easily find the left and right wings.

This is the front of the Bridge before the main viewer and TV were installed. The original two emblems of the Space Center are still there today, hidden by the two large black and gold Federation Emblems.


We descend down from the Bridge looking back at the Security Station.


And finally a right turn will take us back to the Briefing Room.