Bronson Todd Leaves the Discovery Space Center. Saturday's Imaginarium.

Bronson in his natural habitat

Hello Troops,
I've known Bronson since he was 11 years old.  He started as a camper at the CMSEC then applied to become a volunteer.  It was a challenge for him to come down to volunteer because he lived in Park City.  Our long distant volunteers are the best for sure! 

Bronson has been with the Discovery Space Center for the last little while. Sadly, duty is calling him to Arizona where his dad owns a theater similar to the family's Desert Star Playhouse in Salt Lake City.  The theater season is starting now that it's gotten cooler and Bronson is needed.  His last mission at the DSC was last Saturday.  

Bronson promises to pick up the flight director's microphone once again sometime in the future when life permits. Until then, we all say goodbye to Bronson and wish him the best in Arizona. 

I asked Bronson to write up a short bio about himself.  

Thanks Bronson

Mr. Williamson

The Life and Times of the Volunteer and Flight Director Bronson 


The first time I ever attended Space Camp, I was 10 years old. It was a three day camp at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in the summer of 2007. The first mission I ever participated in was Greenpeace on the original USS Voyager simulator, and I can remember every moment of it in vivid detail. Those moments were truly life-changing. 

That first experience at space camp inspired me to imagine and dream in ways I never had before. And I wanted more of it. Additional camps followed, along with private missions and school field trips. I became somewhat of a Space Center regular, as much as one could when living an hour away. 

As soon as I turned 11 years old, I applied for CMSEC's volunteer program. I began working behind the scenes in the simulators, and that is where I discovered my true love: flight directing. At the time, I was only a volunteer, but all I wanted to do more than anything else in the world was sit in that coveted office chair. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to train as a flight director at CMSEC due to the lack of time I was able to spend there. So, I continued acting and working in second chair positions for almost 2 years. When the iWorlds mobile simulator UGS Valiant came to Park City, I eagerly join forces with them. That is where I got my first taste of flight directing, and I absolutely loved it. Sadly, the Valiant left Park city after a few months and I was back to square one.

 At the end of the school year, my family moved to Arizona, and I believed I would never be involved with a space enter ever again. 

After graduating high school in 2014, I moved back to Utah temporarily for work. I learned that Discovery Space Center had open during the absence of the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center, and was operating in Pleasant Grove. I had my own car at that time, so the trip down the canyon was a lot more convenient.

 I started as a volunteer once again, and slowly worked my way up the ranks until I had learned odds and ends of Canyon Grove academies to new simulators, the UCS Everest and the UCS Pathfinder. I still hadn't quite made it to flight director, though.

That all changed one day when Kendrick Gines and I were working a busy, crowded field trip one morning in January 2015. Kendrick looked at me without exhausted face and asked me, "would you like to fly this one?" Before he even had a chance to finish a sentence, I excitedly agreed to the request. The rest, as they say, is history.

 Just a few weeks later, I was certified as a DSC flight director. I flew missions for Discovery Space Center from February 2015 all the way through this month, mid-October 2016. It has been the the most exciting year-and-a-half of my life, and I am truly sad to say goodbye to it all, even if it is just for now. 

I will never forget the experiences and memories I gained from all of these years working and participating at the various space center locations throughout Utah, and The friendships I have made will last a lifetime. It's been quite a ride, and I hope to get back in the game again in the future.

Bronson Todd

Watch Bronson at Work on his Last Mission at the DSC running the Pathfinder Simulator

The Imaginarium

Team Scorpio, Lost in Action. The Fourth LDM Team Lost. Starfleet Shaken. The Voyager Logo ReImagined. A Real Death Star! SpaceX and the Settlement of Mars. Theater Imaginarium.

We Remember the Scorpio Squadron. 

 Lost in Action

     Starfleet lost another squadron of its finest yesterday while doing battle with the despicable Dominion and their minions.  The Project Voyager's Team Scorpio boarded the USS Magellan at the Christa McAluliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove to hunt down the terrorists responsible for the destruction of several starships and two starbases. Knowing the odds were against them, and remembering the four other missing and presumed dead Long Duration Mission squadrons who went before, Team Scorpio bravely donned their uniforms, bid their loved ones fond farewells with hugs and kisses, and boarded the Magellan for a rendezvous with fate. 

     Gone are Captain Zach, First Officer Megan, Sensors Officer Cooper, Communications Officer Jessa, Tactical Officer Dalton, Engineer Abby, Damage Control Officer Nate, and Security Officer Brooke.

The Scorpio Squadron in January 2016. 

The Last Broadcast From the Scorpio Squadron

  

The Original Voyager Logo Reimagined

Hello Troops,
Only the most senior of the original Space Center staff and volunteers remember the Space Center's first logo.  You can still see it painted above the Voyager's outside door next to Central School's exterior gym door.  It was also painted on either side of the USS Voyager's bridge tactical screen, then hidden when I had the two large Federation signs made (look at The Troubadour's title picture at the top of the screen).  I paid an artist good money to create that first logo but never liked it.  Because of the money spent, I felt I had to use it until I designed a new logo which the Space Center uses today.

This week Space Center volunteer Mason took that original logo and reimagined it into what you see above.  What do you think?  I like it.

Mr. W.



Death Star Discovered!  V Hydrae: A Dying Star Shooting Gigantic Balls Of Plasma. Great Idea for a Simulator Mission!

If you happen to be in the vicinity of the star V Hydrae while reading this, you may want to move out of the way.

Something near the star — a bloated red giant 1,200 light-years from Earth — is shooting giant balls of superhot plasma, each of which is twice as massive as Mars and almost twice as hot as the surface of the sun. Astronomers estimate that this stellar “cannon fire,” detected by the Hubble Space Telescope, has been occurring once every 8.5 years for at least the past 400 years.

“The current best explanation suggests the plasma balls were launched by an unseen companion star,” NASA said in a statement released Thursday. “According to this theory, the companion would have to be in an elliptical orbit that carries it close to the red giant's puffed-up atmosphere every 8.5 years. As the companion enters the bloated star's outer atmosphere, it gobbles up material. This material then settles into a disk around the companion, and serves as the launching pad for blobs of plasma, which travel at roughly a half-million miles per hour.”  Read more at International Business News

This whole thing seems like a great mission idea!  I claim it. Nobody else better touch the idea.

Mr. W. 

Elon Musk Announces His Plan to Colonize Mars and Save Humanity

     

ELON MUSK WANTS to go to Mars. And he wants you—especially if you are a NASA string-puller or deep-pocketed futurist—to help him get there.

Sporting Tony Stark facial hair, Musk outlined SpaceX‘s plan today at the 67th annual International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. It involves a slew of new technology: gigantic, reusable rockets; carbon fiber fuel tanks; ultra-powered engines. Plus spaceships capable of carrying a hundred or more passengers to the Red Planet, landing, then returning to Earth to pick up more. Musk doesn’t just want to go to Mars: He wants to build a civilization there. Which means he’ll need all that sweet gear to make it cheap enough to work.

By Musk’s admittedly loose estimates, buying yourself a single ticket to Mars right now (using non-existent tech) would probably cost around $10 billion. The same amount of cash could buy you a few square blocks in Midtown Manhattan. But once the so-called SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System is fully operational, he estimates that a person will be able to travel to the Red Planet for around $200,000, roughly the same as a two-bedroom in Madison, Wisconsin. The ITS—Musk says the name needs some workshopping—would accomplish these cost cuts primarily with lighter materials, stronger rockets, and reusable technology.

Read more at Wired.com

Learn about SpaceX's plan to transport humans to Mars.

Theater Imaginarium

The Best Vidlets of the week, assiduously edited for gentler audiences, minors, and the terminally offended