Space Camp Photos

Final Day of Space Camp Update - Friday 18 April

Today is graduation day and in a couple of hours our students will have finished their Advanced Space Academy Program. They have had a wonderful but full on time. The last couple of days have been very busy with Missions, Rocket launches, Ropes courses,  Space Bowl (Quiz night), and lots of other challenges

Graduation photos to come soon!

Below is some highlights of the last few days - there are plenty more photos to be shown once we are back home.

Day #5 - Thursday 17 April

The highlight of today was twofold - firstly both teams had there extended duration mission which are three hours in length and each of them has a designated role. The mission runs from lift off to the International Space Station and then back to earth. The students have to follow a prepared flight plan but they get many and varied challenges thrown at them by the simulation staff. Both teams handled themselves very well. I believe that Von T had 6 deaths during the mission and Holderer 4. These are pretty low numbers based on past experience however if they want to continue in the mission they have to go and sing to the cafeteria or something on the same embarrassing scale. It makes for a very entertaining lunch. We have some dvds of the mission to bring home but I did manage to sneak into mission control and snap the students hard at work before security escorted me out.

Thursday afternoon was spent firing the rockets that have been designed throughout the week. Team Von T had a 2/3 survival rate for their eggs where as Holderer were experts at making scrambled eggs. The rockets are pretty impressive and they all did a good job of  construction.

Chris W and Jamie with their rocket they made with an American student, Rashid

Team Von T rockets on the stand for launching

Successful egg recovery for Chris W and Jamie's group

Launch pad with Nicole and Rebecca preparing their launch

Two down and one to go for Von T

Another successful egg recovery

Team Holderer also got their rockets to launch but not with the same success. There were some solid designs in this group but not the finesse of Von T.

Luca ready to launch his creation

Harry with the aptly named Liberty rocket, I think it weighed as much as the liberty bell with all that duct tape

Holderer rockets ready to launch

Liberty rocket making alot of smoke of lift off unfortunately this was the best bit as it shortly crashed

The strangest design of the lot - more like a moon landing system than a rocket this is about as high as it went

Shortly before our group did their launches the Australian school that is here with us launched their rockets. Enough to say that NZ won this round although the Aussies did try another under arm bowl by trying to take out the teachers behind the blast sheild - mind you the americans did build a bunker without a roof

Day #4 - Wednesday 16 April

Today was taken up with a wonderful chance to see an IMAX movie about the hubble telescope and the last mission to fix it before the shuttles were retired. Apart from being in a very cool IMAX dome theatre it was great to hear the students reactions. Especially fun was when the scene showing the astronauts training in their version of the Scuba tank came on our students were all heard whispering - we've done that!

The other highlight of the day was down in Area 51 - which is the high ropes and obstacle course. I went down with Team Von T to see them all complete it along with Jenna as well. Below are a few photos.

Jamie flying through the air

Emily getting her harness checked while Nicole starts the climb

Chris W and Chris F along with two American student providing the safety lines

Chris W shortly after saying "Whoops I fell off"

Emily on her way to the top.

Team holderer also had the moon walking chair today - lots of fun had by all in this activity

Simon getting to grips with the unique effects of 1/6 gravity

Luca with his superman impression

Matt going for a sideways approach

Day #3 - Tuesday April 15th

Today has been another busy day at Space Camp with both teams completing more work on their shuttle missions using the simulators this morning. The students are starting to get used to the roles which they have to take in the extended duration mission on Thursday. Prior to this mission they will work as a team to decide who will take which role. This is a chance for students to take responsibility for the strengths in each of the roles that they have. It is wonderful to see them working so well together.

The students started the morning in true Christchurch fashion with the overnight storm bringing temperatures of only 4 degrees this morning. It is apparently getting to  -1 tonight with crystal clear skies. The students completed a Zipline activity this morning part of their team building exercises. Photos of this will come at the end of the week when we get the photo file from Space Camp.

Team Von Tiesenhausen - Chris F, Chris W, Rebecca, Nicole, Emily, Jamie, Alex had a go at moon walking in the 1/6 gravity chair which is a lot of fun. The students have to walk over a simulated moon surface while strapped into the chair which allows them to feel what it would be like to move in 1/6 gravity.

Chris Fensom getting ready to moon walk

Chris leaping in 1/6 gravity

The highlight of the day was Team Holderer - Michael, Harry, Simon, Matthew, Sam, and Luca taking on the challenge of the Scuba tank. They had an early dinner and were then straight into the pre-talk and set up. They all easily passed the swim test from one side of the tank to the other as a first up skill.

Harry completing the swim test to get his tank

They all then followed the instructors through the seven point skills test and again everyone passed very well which meant they could head down to the bottom of the tank. This is a slow process as they have to stop to equalise their ears every few rungs of the ladder. For those of you who were wondering these are the dimensions of the tank.

 

Total Depth = 7.31 meters and diameter = 9 meters,  Volume of water = approx 464,500 L of water @ 21 degrees C

 The instructors are very thorough with the students before leaving the platform and split them into groups

Michael and Matthew work with their instructor while the others are under water

Sam and Luca underwater practising their skills

The students had a blast at the bottom of the tank even getting a chance to work with the air pressure rocket system. This used compressed air and a series of pipes to blast a PVC tubing missile or rocket to the top of the tank. To be able to work it they must solve the maze of pipes at set the correct series of valves before releasing the compressed air. A hard task when underwater with no verbal communication

Luca working the valves to fire the rocket

Luca setting the valves prior to launch and below the missile firing.

The rest of the students completed various activities at the bottom of the tank

Matthew at the Porthole

Sam playing darts

Michael Swimming around the structure

Luca Blowing bubbles

Simon moving between activities at the bottom of the tank

Matthew going inside the structure

Harry moving beneath the structure

Michael Playing basketball with a 13 pound bowling ball.

The rest of the evening was spent either building rockets for Von Tiesenhausen or playing on the Multi axis trainer for Team Holderer. Tomorrow will bring more challenges and more photos.

The student really appreciate the comments from home and are all doing wonderfully well.

Good night from Space Camp and keep an eye out on the home page for Jenna's pictures of the multi axis trainer from today.



Day #2 - Monday April 14th

Today has been the first full day of activities for the students and they started early with a 8:00am walk up call. After breakfast the two teams started on some of their training missions which use the vast array of shuttle simulators to do small 1 or 2 hours missions which give them training for the main mission on Thursday. One team was training on the Canada arm which is part of the cargo bay of one of the shuttles. This meant some students were acting as pilots, some as mission specialist outside on the canada arm fixing a mock satellite and the rest were in "mission control" helping to guide the astronauts. The students then swapped over some everyone got to experience each role.

Below is Jamie on the end of the canada arm fixing the broken satellite

The students spend the rest of the day completing various seminars, tours, activities and lessons to help them with their overall mission and understanding of how the shuttles work.

Dinner was early today as the Von Tiesenhausen team - Chris F, Chris W, Rebecca, Nicole, Emily, Jamie, Alex were getting ready for the Scuba dive. The training is known as Underwater Astronaut Training as is used to simulate neutral buoyancy for astronauts. It is the only time before an actual space flight that astronauts can get a feeling of a space walk and how objects behave in Space.

The Scuba dive starts with a briefing then they get in the 7m deep tank and swim across to a platform to be fitted with their scuba gear. Below is a panorama of the top of the Scuba tank.

The students were taken through 7 skills that they had to master on the top platform which is only 1.5m down before they were allowed to make the descent. This included being able to buddy breathe from the instructor, clear a water logged mouthpiece and mask and recover their respirator if it came loose. They all did extremely well at these skills.

Students getting gear on

Students learning to use the respirator

Rebecca and Nicole having just passed the skills test with their instructor

Emily (white sleeves) and Chris Fensom (Blue mask and grey top) getting ready to head to the bottom of the tank

Emily at the bottom of the tank

Rebecca (yellow shorts) playing with the foam dart at the bottom of the tank

Nicole in the tank

Chris Fensom swimming past the porthole

Chris Worrall at the bottom of the tank

Alex at the bottom in the white t-shirt a little obscured by bubbles

The video shows the three boys - Jamie, Chris F and Chris W playing basketball with a bowling ball and using the foam dart in the dive tank.

The Von tiesenhausen team finished the day with the multi axis trainer. This is used to simulate disorientation in space however it never moves you in the same direction twice so no dizzyness is experienced.

Jamie getting strapped in and below Jamie in motion

The Holderer team - Michael, Sam, Luca, Simon, Matthew and Harry spent the evening building rockets. They could choose a two stage or one stage rocket and it has to be able to safely transport an egg as far as possible and land it with the use of a parachute without smashing it. It looks like the German eye for design may see the team of Michael, Luca and Sam come out on top of the team of Harry, Simon and Matthew who have gone for a more rugged but simple one stage design.

Michael, Sam and Luca building their two stage rocket

Matthew, Harry and Simon adding fins to their one stage rocket

Luca's rocket design - they do say German's make the best rocket scientists

 Today has been a wonderful day to see as a teacher with the dreams of a couple of student realised with their first simulations as pilots of a space shuttle or their first ever dive with Scuba gear. Its wonderful to know that we can help facilitate these students and their passions. They are a remarkable bunch and we are having a blast - excuse the pun.

There is a chance of seeing a full lunar eclipse tonight so we will keep you up to date.




Day #1 - Sunday April 13th


Well today has been a morning for the students to relax while they waited for the camp to officially start at 2:30pm with their orientation. They played a massive game of Uno (last card by the looks but fancier) and some sports. They also got to go and ride some of the attractions at the Space and Rocket Museum of which the space camp is a part of.

Mean while I went for a walk around to remind myself of everything this wonderful facility has. At the center is the Space Shuttle Endeavor - not a working shuttle but the full size replica built by NASA to test all of the loading and launch equipment

The main facility has the cafeteria - where the food has been brilliant and big improvement on previous trips. It also has all of their simulators that the students will be using - I will take more photos when the student are on the activities but here is a couple to start. The first is the shuttle simulator used during the mission for landing and launch.

There is also a mission control center where some of the student will direct the mission - they do swap so each students get to experience everything.

At 2:30pm the students started their orientation with a presentation about the program and rules. One slide caught my attention and I thought that you all as parents may appreciate this. They wake the students at 7am and then they give the following instructions

The call this the WULO process - I cant wait to see if our teenagers can deal with the 30mins to get ready!

The students then met their Crew Trainers who will guide them through this week of pretty intense training. We have one group with Four Americans added to it and one with two Americans added to it. Its wonderful to see how easy our students get along with them.

The is team Von tiesenhausen

This is team holderer

The students are currently off getting their flight suits and name badges - more and better photos of team team to come along with the team rosters.

We are all having a wonderful time and come tomorrow the training activities will come. We will be updating every day our time with more photos. The students love getting your comments so keep them coming.