Watch This Video on the Impact an InfiniD SimLab (Simulator Lab) has on a School in the Davis District. Posts from the Past: September 2000. Galileo Breaks New Ground. New Volunteers. Campers Comments, Bedroom Simulator, The Evil Lehi Bunnies! The Imaginarium.

Watch this Short Video on the Impact One InfiniD Lab has in the Davis School District.
The Spirit of the Voyager Lives On!

Post from the Past:

How the Galileo Broke New Ground 

Posted: September 2000

Once again the Galileo breaks new ground...and this time it is not the cafeteria's floor. Yes, the most state of the art ship...Galileo is yet again the front runner in the technology battle. 

Galileo the first ship to have an ethernet network has been improved. Yes it still is a 

box, but I am talking about technology. The Galileo was the first ship to have a computer with a 400+ mhz processor. The Galileo was the first to have laptops. Galileo was the first to have all computers capable of DVD. And Galileo has done it again. Galileo...the first ship to have a DVD player. Yes, the laserdisc player that we (actually only Kyle) loved has a nice LCARS picture from Star Trek First Contact has replaced the old circle. One more thing is that the sound for the Galileo has been redone. No longer does the Galileo rely on the

camera for it's sound in the control room....no.....it now has a new microphone so that the sound will be sent back in a much more pleasing fashion. You all know how cramped the Galileo's control room was....well not any more. The Galileo's control room has been 

rearranged and is now more organized and more more visually appealing than even the Odyssey's.

Just for the record:

Galileo's firsts:

Ethernet

400+ mhz computers

DVD player

100 disc CD changer

All music is CD..not a tape in site!

I am sure there is more, but if this amount of gloating does not stir up controversy who knows what will.

Galileo Staff

Post from the Past: New Volunteers. AJ Birrell, Bailey Hodson, Wayne Sandholtz, and Matthew Rowley.

From September 11, 2000

Hello Voyagers!

I'm please to announce the appointment of 3 new members into the Voyager Society. AJ Birrell, Bailey Hodson, Wayne Sandholtz, and Matthew Rowley have been taken from the Applicant's in Waiting pool into the Society pending their approval and a review of their grades.

Congratulations to all three. 

Also good news to others in the waiting pool - the pool has become smaller. A special thanks to all in the waiting pool for coming in to interview. The interview process was very beneficial. It is good to match faces with email addresses.

Sincerely,

Mr. Williamson

Post from the Past: Campers Comments After the Overnight Camp. Posted: September 11, 2000

Hello Voyagers!

We finished another good overnight mission. All flight directors agreed this last crew was very good. The crew's comments about their mission are listed below:

"I loved the simulators"

"It was great! It made my Brain Think"

"The Missions were challenging and fun!"

"It was the coolest school I have ever been to"

"So Intensive"

"It seems real when you're in the simulator"

"The stations are cool and I love the missions. It lets me use my imagination!"

"It has tons of awesome stuff. It was so much fun"

"I like it here because it's fun and you get to use your imagination"

"I like that there was a job for everyone and it was fun."

"It was fun and educational"

"This place is the funnest place on EARTH!"

"You get to meet people, You have to think. I love being here. I will come back!"

"It ROCKS!!! It was so cool and your actors are very good. Thank you for letting me come!"

"I love everything about this place"

"The simulators, actors, and learning experiences are what I like. And everything else!"

A special thanks to all for making this place "the funnest place on Earth!"

Mr. Williamson

Post from the Past: New Volunteers Builds Simulator in Bedroom Closet.  Posted: September 14, 2000

As some of you may know I run my own simulator out of my bedroom closet. 

Today my mother made a great announcement! A room in our house will soon be designated as the "computer lab" and she said I can run my Simulator in there. I now have an entire room to use as a simulator!!!!

I NEED YOUR HELP!In honor of this new expansion I would like to create a new ship. 

The name right now is the U.S.S Gondor. Please do one of 3 things:

1. Give me a suggestion for a new name

2. Tell me to stick with the name now

3. Tell me to stop torturing children in my neighborhood by making them come to my simulator.

Thank you

Brad Cummings

P.S. If any one would like to donate an appletalk connector it would be greatly appreciated.

Post from the Past: The Evil Bunnies. Only the Real Old Timers Remember the Evil Bunnies from Lehi; the Space Center Staff's Mortal Enemies!

Posted: September 14, 2000

If steven was taken over by the Evil bunny's I say we take Rio hostage to get the "STEVE MAN" back. What do you guys think? Well lets put this plan into action! How about it Mr. Williamson?!?!? Oh yah congrats to the 4 applicants in waiting, who now are on the AWESOME Voyager Society.

Long Live the "STEVE MAN!"

Bryson Lystrup.

P.S. What will we do for the "Grand Poo-Pah?" Soren looks like this is your chance.

The Imaginarium

The Construction of the USS Phoenix at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center. Winter 2005. New Photos. Space News. Theater Imaginarium.

The Briefing Room's bunks gone. An empty cavern waiting for a simulator.  The bunks were a part of the Briefing Room for nearly fourteen years.

Oh the Phoenix! What the staff and volunteers had to give up for one more ship at the Space Center. 

In 2004 I decided to rip the staff bunks out of the Briefing Room and build another simulator at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center to replace the Falcon. The Falcon was our set up and takedown every weekend six person cafeteria ship. The planetarium domes were getting too many holes, the equipment too battered. The Falcon had to go! 

The Phoenix would be small, six people tops with the smallest control room by far of any of the ships. The staff had mixed emotions: another ship vs. keeping their beloved overnight camp triple bunks built where the original 1956 classroom's student cubbies and coats hung.  In the end, I won out. I was the director and my decision was to build another ship. Another ship for school field trips was a necessity not to mention another ship for private parties. Small ships were very popular, just the right number of kids to squeeze into a minivan.  

The Phoenix under construction all framed in.

The Phoenix Control Room door frame 

 Marty Wooten was our contractor with assisted by David Kyle Herring. David Kyle and I designed the ship, which wasn't an easy task - trying to squeeze as much ship as we could into such a small space.  We imagineered the layout with six classroom chairs, trying every possible combination until today's Phoenix was decided upon.  David Kyle championed the tiered diamond plated flooring complete with something fairly new for the time - rope or string lighting.

The Phoenix side entrance and small control room area.

The Briefing Room from inside the future Phoenix Bridge. Construction played havoc with my office work. I kept the Center operational at full capacity during construction: Field Trips, Overnight Camps, Private Missions etc.

The Phoenix as seen from my desk in the Briefing Room

We tried to keep the dust to a minimum with tarps, but the fine plastic powder from the FRP panelling got everywhere.

My desk area during construction

The construction of the Phoenix gave me the excuse I needed to redesign the entrance to the Odyssey. This gave the Odyssey a boarding area. 

The Odyssey new entrance as seen in the photo above taken from my desk in the Briefing Room. The Odyssey's turning door with the cool curved top opened into a small loading bay. A quick left turn took you into the ship.  The door directly ahead of my desk was necessary for fire code.  A turning door doesn't give rapid egress.  The Phoenix's entrance is where the yellow scaffolding sits. 

 

This was the new Odyssey entrance. The two carpets show where the entrance's darkroom turning door once stood. 

The left side of the Phoenix Control Room. We had a hatchway framed to the Phoenix Bridge to hold a backlit panel. Originally I wanted it to be a security monitor to track intruders in the ship. In the end a rod, dial, and switch panel was installed.

This photo shows the Phoenix Bridge facing forward. The wood flooring is in with the tiers visible. We needed a platform for the 45 inch large screen - HDMI no less!  The platform at the front was used for dial and switch panels and other engineering activities.  It was also just the right size for a volunteer or staff to crawl in and scare the bejeebies out of the unsuspecting crew. Open a hatch and grab a leg was the preferred procedure for ultimate shock value. 

The Phoenix Bridge showing the emergency exit door frame required by firecode. 

The new Briefing Room Entrance.  Odyssey control room door on the immediate left. Phoenix on the right. Odyssey entrance dead ahead and through the archway to the office area. 

Today's Phoenix has a darkroom door of its own but that's not how we opened. The original entrance was the door. The small crew walked through the door into the cramped phone booth sized decontamination chamber; we opened the sliding door, and into the ship they went.

The current darkroom door was added a few years later.  I found it at a neighbor's garage sale one Saturday morning.   

The new USS Phoenix officially open for missions on June 5, 2005, the first 48 hour camp of the Summer 2005 camp season. Next month will be the USS Phoenix's twelfth anniversary. The simulators first flight directors were: David Kyle Herring, Josh Babb, Dave Daymont, and Lorraine Houston as flight directors.

Jon Parker, the current Phoenix Set Director busy working away making the Phoenix even more awesome than it is!

  

The Phoenix Today

Do you have a favorite Phoenix story either as a camper, staff, or volunteer?  Please send it along for a future blog post. My email is spacecamputah@gmail.com.

All the Best!

Mr. Williamson

Space News
By Mark Daymont
spacerubble.blogspot.com

 

Surprise! Military shuttle X-37B lands at KSC

Front view of the X-37B on the shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center. Engineers wear protective suits so they will avoid contamination by any volatile chemicals. (US Air Force photo from Spaceflightnow.com)

The fourth X-37B mission has finally come to an end. Currently the US Air Force has two X-37 spacecraft (that we know of), and this was spacecraft number - well, we don't know, because the US Air Force does not officially disclose which of its spacecraft are up there during a mission. We DO know that it lifted off on May 20, 2015, on an Atlas 5 booster from Cape Canaveral LC-41. It spent 718 days in space.

 Side view of the X-37B. (US Air Force photo from Spaceflightnow.com)

For more information on this mission, check out SpaceFlightNow.com:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/05/07/x-37b-spaceplane-returns-to-earth-and-makes-precision-autopilot-landing/

50 Years Ago: Surveyor 3 on the Moon

Photo of Surveyor 3 actually on the Moon, as taken by astronauts of Apollo 12 years later.

Fifty years ago, NASA continued its preparations for the Apollo program by landing another probe on the lunar surface. This was the third in the Surveyor series, built by Hughes Aircraft, and principally tasked with getting photos of the surface, and sampling the soil. This was the first space probe to include an extendable scoop to bring lunar dust to a sampling experiment on the lander. Surveyor 3 lifted off from Cape Kennedy from launch complex LC-36B on April 17.

An Atlas-Centaur booster used to place the Surveyor spacecraft on the Moon. This is the one from Surveyor-1. 

Surveyor 3 touched down on April 20, 1967, in the Mare Cognitum part of Oceanus Procellarum. It had a hard landing because the descent radar incorrectly calculated the altitude and shut the engine down early. It then bounced several times, as high as 10-meters on one bounce, eventually soft-landing and staying upright. Over the short time of its mission it took over 6,000 images to send to excited scientists on Earth.

One of the panorama-series of images taken by Surveyor 3.

The sampling arm on the space probe made four short trenches in the soil. Each scoop would bring the sample up to a camera that would then take close pictures of the soil appearance and then transmit the images back to Earth.

Surveyor 3 is the most famous of the seven Surveyor missions, because of what happened during the Apollo 12 mission in 1969. Astronauts from Apollo 12 landed very close to the spacecraft (on purpose!) and retrieved several pieces for return to Earth and analysis. 

The camera from Surveyor 3, currently on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Center in Washington, D.C.

Theater Imaginarium
The Best Gifs of the Week, perfect for classroom use.