The New Starship Galileo Launches! The Starship Voyager's Sprint to Launch: All Hands on Deck. The CMSC's Simulators are Open. Time Lapse of the Center's Construction. The Odyssey's New Panel. Imaginarium Theater.

The Third Starship to Carry the Galileo Name Launched on Saturday 

Top Right and Left: Galileo I and its Creator David Kyle Herring. 
Bottom left: Galileo II A project Led by David Kyle Herring.
Bottom Right: The New Galileo's First Crew on it's Saturday Launch Day

     I stepped into the lobby at the Christa McAuliffe Space Center on Saturday to present the 1:10 P.M. Planetarium show and found James Porter standing with this group of young men waiting impatiently for their first mission in the new Starship Galileo.  

     "The first crew to fly the new Galileo," James announced.  There was well earned pride in his voice.  Getting the Center's six starships up and running is quite a burden.  Each has its own challenges because each is different in its own way.  

     James saw me reach for my phone.  "Don't worry," he said holding out his hand. "I'll get a picture you can use on the blog."  

     James knows the importance I place on documenting Space Center history.  He feels the same way as you can tell from his many Facebook posts detailing the Center's accomplishments and achievements.  

     Today's Space Center is the work of hundreds of people over the last 30 years.  It is the District's showcase definition of school, business, and community partnerships.  All of us who currently, or who have ever in the past, played a part in what it is today, stand proud at what it has become.  It's our baby all grown up!

Thank you 

Mr. Williamson 

The Space Place at Renaissance Academy Prepares the Starship Voyager for Launch

Bracken and Gage, Renaissance Academy's tech, considering the installation of a 
new bridge printer and a mammoth subwoofer to really "Shake the Place!"

Bracken Funk and crew are no strangers to putting in long hours to meet their goals to have Renaissance Academy's Starship Voyager back to full service after the long Covid night and several months of school remodelling. Recently Bracken and family even spent an entire night working on the ship's multiple systems for a special program for a high school physics class. His two little kids slept in the control room while he and his wife Lajana tended to the work at hand. "I work best in long sprints," he explained when I found them in the Voyager again last Saturday afternoon.

 

     The Voyager's bridge looked like it had lost a battle with a Romulan Warbird when I walked in to check on them Saturday afternoon.  "Come check out these improvements and changes," Bracken said when he saw me.       

     

     "We've moved the bridge printer from the back to the front next to communications where it should be," he explained.    

     "We moved the front two stations back from the main viewer to give them a better view of the screen and to give the crew a quicker way to move from one side of the bridge to the other.  Good for security." 

Megan (left) and Lajana (right) at the back of the bridge.

     Megan Warner, set director for The Space Place's Starship Titan, was part of Bracken's Saturday crew.  You Voyager fans will see the Captain's tactical table with screen was moved to the back wall.  There are plans to put benches along the platforms giving the captain a place to bring the crew together for meetings and briefings.

     The Space Place's Voyager Club will reopen very soon.  The Voyager Club provides space education through multiple simulations using the Starship Voyager and InfiniD missions to Renaissance Academy's kindergarten - 8th grade students. Watch for more news to come.    

All the Simulators are Open at the Christa McAuliffe Space Center

The Phoenix II Recently opened at the Christa McAuliffe Space Center

     Simulator reservations are no longer limited to just families!

Welcome back birthday parties, team building activities, adult get togethers, and every other excuse to have a fun adventure.

You can find available dates and times on our website spacecenter.alpineschools.org/group-missions/

Time Lapse Construction of the New Christa McAuliffe Space Center and Central School 

Watch the construction of the new Christa McAuliffe Space Center and Central Elementary School from Beginning to end with this 5 minute time lapse video.  

 

The Odyssey's New Control Panel in Place and Ready for Use

Imaginarium Theater

This Week's Best Videos From Around the World Edited for a Gentler Audience

Happy Easter From The Good Folks at The Troubadour.

What can I say.... It was either him or me for that money egg.

Hello Troops,

It is a busy Easter so The Troubadour staff (all one of them) is using the day for eating mass quantities of food and participating in every Easter egg hunt I can find. I may be coming to your  home because my own family has barred me from hunting Easter eggs. I tend to get overly excited with a gentle shove here and a trip there to get rid of the competition. Yes there are tears with snotty noses but the little ones need to learn how to fight for what they want in today's world.  Have a great day and enjoy the new Imaginarium Theater with family and friends.  

Mr. Williamson

Imaginarium  Theater

The Best Videos From Around the World Edited for a Gentler Audience

Renaissance Space Academy is Now The Space Place at Renaissance Academy. The Starship Voyager's First Mission in a Year. Great Staff, Great Crew. From the Archives, Phoenix Disaster! Imaginarium Theater.

With the lifting of several Covid restrictions, Renaissance Academy is in the process of reopening the school's Space Academy with a new name for a new start. Let's all welcome The Space Place at Renaissance Academy into the Space EdVentures group of space centers.   

"Where did that name come from?" you ask.  Bracken Funk explained it to me this way.  "How many of our students and crew use The Space Place as the slang name for the Space Academy?  So I thought let's make it official and rebrand as The Space Academy. It's short, easily remembered, and right to the point.  We do space and we do it well. Let's be The Space Place!  

The name has grown on me over the last few weeks. I like it.  Yes, let's be The Space Place. The name is more kid and teen friendly than The Space Academy and that is who we serve through our Young Astronauts and Voyager Clubs. Besides, the school already uses the name academy in its name.  

Tune in weekly to The Troubadour to learn more about The Space Place and how you,your friends, and family can participate in our programs. And for you students at Renaissance Academy, those sounds you've heard coming from the Starship Voyager are a sign of great things to come.  

Mr. Williamson 

The Space Place Hosts High School Students from American Heritage School

The Space Place at Renaissance Academy

March 26, 2021

It was all go aboard the Starship Voyager at The Space Place on Friday. After three weeks of programming DMX lights, cleaning, reorganizing, debugging, intensive Thorium coding, installing massive subwoofers, and many minor cosmetic touches, the Starship Voyager flew for the first time Friday since the Covid shutdown last March.  The ship's shakedown crew came from Alex DeBirk's high schoolers from American Heritage School in American Fork. The students were involved in their school's science and physics camp. The mission was the cumulativing event of the camp.   

The crew flew a mission written by Alex DeBirk. The mission was designed to incorporate complex physics problems specifically written to challenge this group of gifted students. 

Bracken and Lejana Funk staffed the mission.  Bracken reimagined the standard concept of a mission control room by programming Thorium to do many ship tasks automatically thus freeing up the flight director to focus more on the students and less on the controls, sounds, and videos.  Bracken monitored the controls. Alex Debirk was Flight Director with control of the microphone and sound effects.  This method of flying opens the door for many of the Space Center's retired flight directors to return from time to time to run missions without needing to learn how to operate the ship's controls. 

With the success of this first mission, The Space Place and it's flagship Voyager is preparing for .............. let me finish that sentence with a few lines from the movie "2010: The Year We Make Contact"

• Dave Bowman : You see, something's going to happen.

  Heywood Floyd : What? What's going to happen?

  Dave Bowman : Something wonderful.

  Heywood Floyd : What?

  Dave Bowman : I understand how you feel. You see, it's all very clear to me now. The whole thing. It's wonderful.

• HAL-9000 : What is going to happen?

  Dave : Something wonderful.

Here are a few pictures of the Voyager's return to space last Friday. 

 The long walk from the Transition Room to the Voyager's Bridge.

A few turns later and you find yourself on the bridge

The Voyager's Bridge. 

Left Forward Bridge. Right Aft Bridge where the 

Command Tactical Station is located

From the Archives. Ten Years Ago This Month

SUNDAY, MARCH 20, 2011

The Phoenix has a New View Screen (And Other Things)

Hello Troops,
We had a good weekend punctuated with a couple hiccups. Alex stopped me as I walked into the office Friday evening. It was almost 6:00 P.M. and I had several things I needed to do for the Overnight Camp at 7:00 P.M.

"Our main viewer is down. I couldn't get it to turn on." Alex was neck deep in a Phoenix private mission so he had to speak quickly. "I'm using the two side TV's only."

I asked if he'd clicked the input button on the remote. He said he had but I wasn't convinced. I'm usually pretty good at making what some classify as impossible, possible. I found the remote, walked into the ship, told the kids to carry on and pretend I wasn't there and fiddled with the viewer. It was obvious the TV had power - the red light on the front control panel flickered whenever I pushed a remote button, but no matter what I did, no matter which button combination I pushed, that TV wouldn't cooperate. I pronounced it DOA when I came out of the ship.

I was left with one choice - I had to purchase another TV for the Phoenix. The old set would be removed and taken to the repair shop for diagnosis. If it could be repaired at a reasonable cost then it would be. If it couldn't, then it would be carted off to recycling - or whatever else you do with dead large screen TVs.

The Phoenix private mission ended at 7:00 P.M. That gave Dave and Alex just 20 minutes or so to come up with an alternative plan for the Overnight camp. They found an old 24 inch TV in the Animation Studio and installed it. Mind you, it looked odd having this large wall of black plastic with a 24 inch screen shining through but would the campers know? Most likely they wouldn't - thinking what they saw was how the ship was designed.

The second hiccup was discovered around 8:00 P.M. Several volunteers failed to show up to work the camp. That immediately put us into 'problem solving' mode. Within fifteen minutes we had the problem worked out. I want to thank Erick B. for answering the email call for additional staff and coming when he did. It made a big difference.

Saturday morning I called Brady Young, a Voyager Flight Director and a member of Best Buy's Geek Squad, and explained the problem. Brady said he would talk to the store's manager and see if they would sell us a TV at cost. He called back saying he'd worked out a deal.

Later that afternoon, Bill Schuler picked me up in his truck and we drove to Lehi's Best Buy. We met Brady near the Geek Squad's area. He introduced me to the asst. manager and we worked out a deal. One thousand dollars later and we were out the door with a nice 47 inch LCD television for the Phoenix's main viewer. We got back to the Space Center just as the afternoon mission was wrapping up.

The Center closed at 5:00 P.M. Alex and Jon stayed until 7:30 P.M. installing the new TV. It wasn't easy, considering the number of cables that had to be stretched across the Phoenix's ceiling.

The new TV is in and, according to Alex, looks awesome!

"There is one problem," Alex said when he called me to deliver the news. "Whenever we switch between inputs, the TV displays the word 'Component' in the corner for a few seconds. It's something we can't make go away so it will be something we have to live with."
Alex and Jon will come up with some "sci fi" explanation for the word's appearance in the context of the Phoenix being a starship etc. We are good and dishing out the bull when necessary.

I'm anxious to see the TV in action on Monday. I hope it's worth the $1000 paid. I want to thank Bill, Alex and Jon for helping with this small crisis.

Mr. Williamson

Imaginarium Theater

The Best Videos From Around the World Edited for a Gentler Audience