The Voyager's New Summer Story, And Other Things.

 Todd Wilps was on a Memorial Day trip to the beach when he got the news 

that he was too late to sign up for a Space Center Summer Camp.

Don't Let This Be You!  

Register Today

Hello Troops,
While many enjoy a three day weekend, the Space Center staff and volunteers will have two days off.  These rare occasions give us a chance to recharge, rebuild, reenergize and prepare ourselves for the two busiest months of the year - June and July.

June and July are summer camps months.  Each week you'll find us hosting a three day camp, an overnight camp and a few dozen or so private missions.  It is the time of year when the Space Center makes much of its budget for the upcoming year.  If you haven't registered for a summer camp I urge you to do so quickly.  They are filing quickly. Soon, you may find yourself like the boy above, shocked to his very core at the discovery that there is no place for him at the Space Center this summer.  He'd waited too long to register.  Now, he faces a bleak summer without an infusion of pure, unadulterated imagination and creativity.  Rare, natural brain enhancing drugs dispensed at very few places - the Space Center being one of them.

Our simulators are preparing their new summer missions.  The Phoenix's mission has been told several times.  Each telling was received warmly by the crews who flew them.  The Odyssey's mission is ready.  The Galileo's had its first telling last week.  The crew responded favorably.  The Magellan's new summer story is waiting on its tactical screens and visual track.  The Voyager's new summer story will be told for the first time this weekend.

The Voyager's New Mission

The great space faring nations are struggling to rebuild after the long night of terror unleashed on them by the Borg.  The Federation, Romulan, Klingon and Cardassian nations are mere shadows of their former selves.  Their home worlds devastated, their fleets all but demolished and their citizens scattered to the four corners of this galactic quadrant.  Each nation struggles to regain what it once had.  Each nation rebuilds, sending their tattered fleets back to the stars to reclaim the worlds which once flew their flags and proclaimed their greatness.

In the midst of this devastation, the Paklids remain - untouched by the Borg.  Their home world left as it was before, their identity and national purpose unmarred.  The Borg Cubes flew by the Paklids on their way to Earth, Kronos, Romulas and Cardassian Prime.  The Borg scanned Paklidia and found the Paklid people undeserving of assimilation into the collective.  They believed the Paklids had nothing to offer.  To some extent, the Borg were correct.  The Paklids appear to be a very simple people, yet buried deep in what most think to be simpleness, lies the strength, culture and national purpose that has kept the Paklids an independent people for thousands of years.

In their hurry to subdue the great nations, the Borg overlooked something else about Paklidia.  The Paklid home world is rich in dilithium ore.  Dilithium is the controlling agent which allows massive warp drive engines to harness the power of antimatter and channel it is such that a doorway can be opened into the realm of hyperspace.  Hyperspace allows warp travel and warp travel opens the galaxy to exploration and colonization.

The Voyager's new summer story introduces us to Horace, the crown prince of Paklidia and his bodyguard Dweeb.  Horace and Dweeb are on Earth with the Paklid Minister of Commerce.  Starfleet Command is wanting to sign a multiyear contract with Paklidia.  This contract will, once again, give Earth access to Paklid dilithium crystals.  Horace and Dweeb used their time on Earth to tour, meet humans, and study the finest Federation technology offered to the Paklids in exchange for their dilithium.

Now it is time for Horace and Dweeb to return to Paklidia.  The Paklid government has arranged for an escort ship to accompany the Royal Starbug (Starbug - the name given to Paklid starships) back to Paklidia.  The USS Voyager has been given that task.  The journey to Paklids is fraught with danger.  Remember, the Federation has lost control of much of its territory.  There are whole sections of space once held by the Federation that are now in the control of lawless gangs of space pirates and mercenaries.

The Orion Pirates, led by the infamous Mad Dog, control the several light years of space separating the last functioning Federation Starbase and Paklid space.  Ths area, called 'The West', is named after the American Wild West of the 1800's.    The Voyager will rendezvous with the Royal Spacebug at Starbase 101.  Prince Horace has expressed an interest in touring the Voyager and meeting her crew.

Horace is an avid admirer of Space ships.  His favorite is the Romulan Warbird.  "A fine ship," Horace says.  Horace's love for the Romulan Warbird led him into an admiration of the Romulan people and their former Empire.  His admiration has made Horace a vocal supporter of the Romulans. He has urged his father to give the Romulan Empire the dilitium contract instead of the Federation.  Horace's father,  not taken in by the clever design of the Warbird and false Romulan promises of eternal peace and friendship,  refused his son's request.  He knows Romulan history and their preoccupation of colonizing worlds with resources they deem of strategic value to their Empire.  Over Horace's objections,  the King sent his Commerce Minister to sign the trade agreement with the Federation.  To placate his son, the Paklid King agreed to sell limited amounts of crystals to the Romulans.  The Romulans are not happy they lost the contract, but are powerless to force a Paklid change of mind.  The Paklids are the current power in the galaxy, having been ignored by the Borg.  Of course, with the death of the Paklid King, Horace will take the throne.  A scenario the Romulans hope will come sooner, rather than later.

How Do Astronomer's Know the Distances to Far Away Objects in Space?

This post ends with a short video explaining how astronomers tell the distances to far away stars and galaxies.  Please take a minute and learn something about astronomy.  I promise you'll find it fascinating.



Mr. W.        

Midnight Thoughts at the Space Center

Hello Troops,
I'm sitting here befuddled.  Before me is a blank white screen waiting for words to form in my tired brain and find their way down my arms, through my fingers and onto this electronic void.  What could I possibly write at 11:56 P.M. on a Friday night that you would find interesting?

I feel a few thoughts taking shape but nothing is congealing.  They are just vague ideas popping back and forth between the rational and irrational parts of my consciousness like electrons transitioning between dimensions of space time.

Wait, something is taking shape......I'm thinking of the awesome campers we're hosting from Ridgeline Elementary.  Great kids with positive attitudes and intelligence beyond their years......

... and there the thought goes - disappearing into the Aether like a vapor from a boiling pot.

I'm seeing something else through the fog of a midnight's delirium.   It's a young volunteer stretched out on one of our ancient cots procured from the War Department after the Spanish American War (well, not really but you'd think so if you ever tried to find a comfortable sleeping position on one of them).  He's giving me a thumbs up.  Yes, perhaps I could write about the new job I've created for our young Connor J.  He is our newly appointed Chief of Cot Quality and Comfort (CCQC).  The CCQC was created in a response to years of complaints from our campers regarding the Overnight Camp's sleeping cots.  Connor tolerably completed his assignment this evening.  He stretched out on each of our older cots, rolled about a bit to simulate a night's unconscious motion, and sat up, putting all his weight on the center of the cot where the unforgiving support bar is found.

"These cots pass," he said with a pride only found in someone who knows he has put in a days work for a day's pay.  "The campers should have no problem with them.  They aren't comfortable in the classical sense of the word but not so uncomfortable a camper couldn't find at least a few hours sleep."

I told him his job rested entirely on the comments made by the campers on the post camp survey.  If the cots aren't mentioned at all, then he keeps his title and position.  If there are complaints, then its back to where I found him in the Center's boiler room shoveling coal into the massive boilers which provide the power to drive our ship's powerful Warp Drive Engines.  Connor gulped down a powerful urge to sob uncontrollably while nervously rubbing his calloused hands together.

I could write about Connor and the cots, but the thought is disappearing as quickly as it appeared.  Besides, I doubt anyone out there would find our troubles with cots an interesting read when compared with the problems Greece is having with the Euro.

Wait, there is something else in the mist.  And its gone before I could make out a shape.

I think I'll put up the white flag and call this post a complete failure.  I'm relieved to a certain extent.  I can stop typing.  I can turn off the light and try to get some sleep on the pad in front of my desk.  I'll tell the staff to stop talking in the Odyssey before going to bed .  I'll also have to ignore the sleeping dock's creaking in the Voyager's Captain's Quarter's .  Every time the boys turn or move, the boards in the sleeping dock squeak.  I'll talk to our builder about fixing that when he comes in next.

It's 12:23 A.M.  Time for bed.

Goodnight from the Space Center.

Mr. W.

50 Years Ago: Aurora 7 in Space!

 

Mercury-Atlas 7 blasts off!

Fifty years ago, on May 24, 1962, NASA launched mission MA-7 with astronaut Scott Carpenter from Launch Complex LC-14 at Cape Canaveral. The capsule, named "Aurora 7" by the astronaut, entered Earth orbit five and a half minutes later. Like John Glenn's MA-6 flight, the mission lasted for 3 orbits and completed its primary mission objectives.

 

Mercury Mission Control.

Some of the mission objectives were scientific. One objective was to observe liquid in a weightless environment. Another involved investigating things that John Glenn had reported during his flight, such as the airglow in the atmosphere layer, and identification of the "fireflies" Glenn had reported, which turned out to be frozen ice particles from the spacecraft exterior. Photographs were taken of the Earth and the colors in the atmospheric layer.

 

Photo taken from Aurora 7.

 

Most importantly, the spacecraft was checked out for engineering tolerances, and deemed ready for continued missions with longer orbits. Unfortunately, the Automated Control System suffered a malfunction. Astronaut Carpenter was able to manually take control and operate the spacecraft so that no mission objectives were affected, except one.

Carpenter inside the Mercury spacecraft before launch.

 

After a flight time of 4 hours 30 minutes, Carpenter began re-entry operations. The retro rockets fired, slowing the spacecraft so that it began to lower its altitude. Carpenter lowered and secured the periscopic viewer used for outside observations, and a minute and a half after firing the retros, the retro pack was jettisoned, exposing the heatshield for re-entry. During re-entry and the blazing fire of heated plasma around the craft, Carpenter used the spacecraft controls to orient the spacecraft position. At some point during the process, enough error entered the flightpath to cause it to go slightly off course. The main parachutes were deployed perfectly, and splashdown occurred at mission time T+4 hours, 57 minutes, 10 seconds. The only problem was, there was no one there to fetch him!

 

Aurora 7 in the water, with Navy frogmen assisting.

 

The spacecraft had overshot the expected landing area, and Carpenter found himself 402 kilometers away from where they were looking. Eventually though, he was found and Navy divers were dispatched to place a flotation collar around the capsule to prevent it sinking like what happened to Gus Grissom's capsule. Carpenter egressed from the upper hatch and entered one of the liferafts provided. The rescue ship, carrier Intrepid, arrived and the capsule was recovered and Carpenter brought on board for a successful end to the MA-7 mission.

 

Carpenter on the deck of USS Intrepid.

 

By Mark Daymont

Space Center Educator

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