Help Us Fund the New USS Voyager Simulator. Project Voyager Student Organization. The Imaginarium.

The Bridge of the Original USS Voyager

Help Us Build the New Voyager and Fund Project Voyager

     The original USS Voyager at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove closed for good on July 31, 2012.  The cost to remodel the Space Center's first simulator to meet full handicap accessibility, remove the spiral staircase and replace it with stairs, etc. etc. proved to be too much. It wasn't cost effective considering the Space Center's host school (Central Elementary) and the Space Center would most likely be on the next school district bond for demolishing and replacing.
     The Voyager was the first ship for tens of thousands of Space Center visitors. It was the only simulator I personally flight directed.  It was the primary dorm for the overnight camps. It was the only simulator with multiple decks.  Despite its flaws, it was the best simulator built - until now.
     A new Starship Voyager is under construction at Renaissance Academy in Lehi.  Renaissance Academy is a public charter school with an emphasis on foreign languages and experiential education.  The school has committed $150,000 to the project. This money will build most of the ship except for two rooms. Our Space Education Center Foundation has committed to help raise the rest of the money we need to finish the new Voyager's Engineering Room and Sick Bay, along with scholarship funds for deserving students who want to participate in our new student organization called Project Voyager.  
     Please take a minute and visit the Project Voyager's web site to learn about this exciting educational opportunity for students between the ages of 10 and 17.  What student wouldn't want to be on one of the LDM (Long Duration Mission) squadrons?  Of course, this will all take money - which is why we are sponsoring a fundraiser.  A donation of any size will help AND every donation is tax deductible. We also have some nice thank you gifts for your donations.  
     Please visit the funding site and considering donating to our cause.

SpaceEdventures.org  

Thank you,
Mr. Williamson  
   

The Imaginarium

Hello Pluto! New Horizons Made It.

New Horizon Probe Flies by Pluto

What we've been waiting for: the first detailed image of the dwarf planet Pluto.

What magnificent timing! Fifty years from the flyby of Mariner 4 past Mars, NASA's patient deep space probe New Horizons has finally reached its destination and began its studies of Pluto and its moons. Discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto has orbited an eccentric path around the Sun, sometimes moving inside the orbital path of Neptune! Recently downgraded by the Astronomical Society from a full planet to a dwarf planet (being one of the Kuiper-Belt object series), the surface of Pluto has remained hidden even from the great eyes of the Hubble Telescope. 

Liftoff from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.

The New Horizons spacecraft left Earth on January 19, 2006. During its long voyage, patient mission controllers have monitored the systems and equipment until early this morning when the probe made a flyby at 7,100 miles from the surface. Totally focusing on the imaging mission during the short flyby time, flight controllers earlier had downloaded the best image yet taken in order to provide it to a news-hungry mob of spacecraft supporters and scientists at the John Hopkins Applied Research Lab. Then during the flyby, the spacecraft diligently focused entirely on imaging the planet, expecting to return images to Earth later when the spacecraft was far from the planet. 

NASA graphic showing the path of New Horizons through the Pluto system of planet and moons.

The images will be slowly downloaded over the next 16 months. I'll plan to put these on this blog site as we get them, as this is the end of Earth's first reconnaissance of the Solar System. Our next goals will be detailed explorations of the planets and Moons as we search for possible life and valuable mineral deposits.

by Mark Daymont

Spacerubble.blogspot.com

Update from Space.com

After 85 years as a mystery, the surface of Pluto is finally coming into focus, with a new NASA photo revealing towering ice mountains rising from its surprisingly youthful face.

NASA today unveiled the first close-up photos of Pluto and two of its five moons as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft, which buzzed the dwarf planet Tuesday (July 14) during a historic flyby. One photo revealed a mountain range rising 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) into Pluto's sky, along with a surface just 100 million years old at the most.

Another image captured evidence of recent geological activity on Charon, Pluto's largest moon. Yet another photo revealed the first good look at Hydra, one of Pluto's four smaller satellites. [Watch NASA Unveil New Pluto Photos (Video)]