Space Camp Journal
For Christmas one year I received an amazing gift! It was a sign up sheet to go to space camp, and get a cool flight suit too! I left for camp on March 23, 2007.
Day 1
My dad and I arrived in Alabama by plane. It was just about noon. There was a female greeter from the camp that told us there would be a bus waiting for us on the bottom floor. We took a few escalators to the bottom floor where there was a man wearing the same flight suit as the woman we had met earlier. He took us outside to a large bus. We got inside and left the airport in the direction of space camp.
When we arrived we were shown our name tags and told the number of the room we would be staying in, it was rather large with more lockers than there were beds. My dad was longer than the bed and called the room “the box”. We put our luggage down and unpacked our clothing and personal articles.
We went downstairs to wait for the camp instructor and other people from all over who came to this awesome place. After an hour and a half of walking around and looking at models of rockets outside, the rest of the group arrived. We were all introduced to each other. My instructors name was James, he knew a whole lot about space. He told us we could go eat lunch wherever. So my dad and I went to a small café and ate. The food here was delicious.
After lunch we had a meeting with all the other groups and were told some of the things we would be doing this afternoon. My group then went into the museum to learn about space history. We participated in three space games before dinner. We ate in what was basically, a cafeteria. The food was …terrible!!! Uhgggg, how disgusting!
Day 2
The next morning we got up and got all the supplies we would need for the day’s activities. Breakfast was pretty good. There was cereal and tater tots and other delicious foods. Then we practiced what a real shuttle launch is like. Some of us were in mission control, some in the space station, and others in the shuttle.
I got to be shuttle commander! The launch simulation went through the countdown, takeoff, booster separation, tank separation, and finally the orbit. The model of the shuttle had working buttons and levers. It was really cool.
Then we all got to try the multi axis trainer. I thought it would make me sick but it didn’t. It was awesome!!!!!!
A while after that we ate lunch. Then the kids went to work on a secret project that parents knew nothing about. We got to build a Lego space station, which was hard because we all had different ideas. But everyone’s ideas were somehow used.
Then free time came! Yay! I got a snow cone and looked at all of the cool real and model rockets. It’s not that that the rocket the models represented never flew it’s just that the government had most of the used rockets. Afterwards we learned more about space history and then went to see an I-max movie.
Day 3
I woke up knowing that it was the last day of space camp. I got ready for the day and went to breakfast. After we ate it was time to present the secret project to our parents. They liked our creativity
Then we went on a hunt for certain things in the museum. It was a bit like a game of I spy. Afterwards we went to the I-max theatre to watch another movie about space. It was really awesome! Then we played space jeopardy. And my team won!
Then there was the closing ceremony, and I got a cool pin. My dad and I had a little while till departure so we went to have lunch and ride the 2 rides they had. The space shot and the G force then we went to the airport and flew home.
I had a lot of fun despite some of my “sleeping buddies”. There are different space camps and the one I went to was the parent child program. There are also programs that kids can do without parents and it’s your choice which one you want to go to. But no matter what they are fun experiences.