Space Camp - Day 2

Space Camp, Day 2 is winding down and I'm back in my bunk at the Hab for the night.
Another jam packed day. Last night I was debating reviving my standard "up in the morning for some exercise" routine that I generally try to do when I'm traveling (at least traveling in the US. I don't normally do that when I'm on mission trips.) I figured I would see how I felt in the morning.
I didn't sleep great last night (had some trouble falling asleep, which isn't unusual for my first night in a new place), but at around 6am, when Reagan (my roommate) got up, I decided I probably wasn't going to really get any more qualty sleep. So I got up and went for a jog. With the help of my ipod, I jogged around Rocket Park (outside area where all the rockets are) for a bit, did some situps and pushups under Pathfinder (the full scale Space Shuttle complete with SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters), ET (External Tank) and Orbiter (what people normally call the Space Shuttle) which was built by NASA so that they could practice moving the thing around before they got the real thing.) and then headed back to the Hab to shower and get ready to start the day.
After breakfast (the food's not half bad. It's still cafeteria food, but it's reasonable. Maybe half a step below the food at RYM...and not quite as many vegetables. But they had lots of grapes at both lunch and dinner, so I'm making up for the lack of veggies with lots of fruit.), we trained for the first of our one hour missions. There are four of these and they all lead up to our 6 hour EDM (extended duration mission. Yes, we speak in acroynms here.). For the Alpha mission, I was assigned to the MS2 (mission specialist 2) position. That position is in the orbiter (space shuttle, we're using the Enterprise shuttle. Which is the same orbiter sim that I used when I was came for Level II so many years ago.). The job of MS2 is to work with MS1 (Jeremy from Iowa in this case) and repair a Westar communications satelite. The repair involves replacing two antennas. As we learned many times in training, there are four steps in any repair. Deactivate, repair, reactivate and run a diagnostic. Skipping any part can lead to problems. For the mission, to simulate the weightlessness of space, I got to strap into a sky diving harness and "float" around the cargo bay, helping with the repair, stowing the bad antennas and retrieving the good ones and basically doing a lot of the leg work that MS1, who is on the end of the Canada (robotic) arm can't reach with the arm. MS2 is one of my favorite positions. I love "floating" around the cargo bay. So much fun. So I was excited to get to do this.
After training, we watched the IMAX movie "The Dream is Alive". Narrated by Walter Cronkite, this movie talks a lot about space shuttle missions, some about the training and the people who are involved. It's probably my favorite IMAX movie. So, at this point, I was having a great morning.
Next up was our time at Area 51. We split into two teams of eight people (although not along "track" lines, which worked out okay) and went through a series of low ropes team building activities. My team worked incredibly well together and really frustrated the facilitators a bit, as there wasn't really a lot for us to work on. We were able to complete each "mission" in the alloted time (15 minutes), including completing the final one in under 5 (which Jerry (callsign Jumpman), our main facilitator said was possibly quicker than the time that the facilator team did it in.) I was very pleased with how we all worked together, listened to each other and were able to complete even very difficult tasks. I got to be team leader for one of the missions. That mission was to get our full team, and an injured team member (I called him George, short for George P. Burdell, the Georgia Tech any student) from one platform to another. The platforms are connected by a wire, which you have to haul yourself across while wearing safety harnesses and such. The trick is that there's only two sets of safety equipment and one 50 foot rope. Only one person can cross at a time and George can't be left alone. I think the planning could have gone better, we did have one team member who made a second trip and we had to throw the rope one time. But it still went well. I relied heavily on the skills of my team and our resourcefulness and flexibility to get the task accomplished. And it worked. Area 51 was a lot of fun and I'm glad that we had an opportunity to complete it. I think it helped to bring our team closer together (in many ways. On the final mission we had to move all of our team from one platform to another, but we all had to be on one platform or another, or on the boards crossing the platforms at all times. So we did a lot of standing really close and hugging each other. I think we've got pictures. Hope Jeremy's wife doesn't mind.
Next was lunch, our group photo and a chance to start on the design of our group mission patch. Jason took charge of the mission patch design (he and his wife are here for their 10 year wedding anniversary. They met when they both worked here as counselors.) and while we didn't get the design completely finished in our allotted hour, we came up with something that I think will look great.
Finally it was time for our Alpha mission. Communications problems seemed to plague the whole team and I don't think anyone felt really good about the whole event. Jeremy and I were only able to replace one antennae in the time allotted and, as it was, we still didn't make it back inside the orbiter in time for the landing (we suspend disbelief a lot in the one hour missions, especially when it comes to timeline stuff.). While people were a bit frustrated, everyone still had a good time and we're all looking forward to a chance to improve.
After our mission we had our introduction to scuba diving lecture and dinner. Then the two tracks split. The pilots went to scuba and the mission specialists (that's me) went over to Aviation Challenge to fly the simulators and ride the centerfuge. The AC sims are more difficult to fly than the JSF simulator. The stick is very much a motion as opposed to a force stick. And the aircraft (an F-18 F) seems very underdamped. So the controls were touchy. I did manage to fly reasonably well, not crash and accomplish a landing on a real runway (didn't go into the grass at all). Although I flew past the runway a lot of times and, at one point, got frustrated and decided to fly out over the ocean and do a few maneuver blocks to vent some of that. My time in the JSF sim and just my general understanding of how airplanes fly and what's important was very helpful. Not everyone enjoyed it quite so much, although everyone was laughing at the end of our time.
I decided not to ride the centerfuge. I've done them before and I just don't enjoy the experience, especially not the minor queasiness after the ride is over. But others did enjoy it. We had a bit of time after we got done at the centerfuge and we got a bit of a tour of some of the aircraft on static display at AC. I had never been able to get up close to a harrier before, so that was a neat experience for me. I also got to see an F-111 and an A-6 Intruder (which is what my senior design aircraft was very similiar to). That specific A-6 had a confirmed kill of a Russian Mig....something...37? in the Vietnam war. Jason (callsign Tiller) was very knowledgable about the aircraft and you could tell military aviation is a passion of his. So that was a neat time. And that ended the day's activities.

Some thoughts on the day and the week.
- The program that I'm going through is definitely less academic than it was on my previous trips. This might be better for kids, but I don't think it's as good for adults.
- One hour does not seem long enough for a short mission, especially for early in the week when there are communications and logistics issues to be worked out. On previous trips, I believe these missions were two hours.
- Area 51 is very cool. They've done a great job with building this area and the facilitators are top notch. Apparently this area was completely rebuilt last year.
- Casey our night counselor and Valerie our day counselor are both great. They hang out with us, keep track of us, listen to our issues and do everything they can to give us the best experience possible. You can tell that they love their jobs and especially like hanging out with adults.
- Our team is starting to come together more. There are definitely different groups who click better than others. But we all seem to work together well and enjoy each other's company. There's no real dominating personalities and no major annoyances.
- We do have one team member, April, who has some special needs. She's functioning on probably the level of a late elementary school student. But she's doing well. Everyone is working well with her, some more actively than others, and the counselors are helping out tons. I think it's helpful that we've got two female counselors, both of whom have worked with the younger age groups in the past. We are having to make some allowances, especially in terms of mission positions (she's very afraid of heights and would not do well in the orbiter), but the staff is working hard on that and everything is going well.
- I had a lot of expectations coming into this week. Some of them are being met, others are not. So far, this week hasn't been better than RYM last year and probably not quite as good as RYM this year. But it's still a lot of fun and I'm having a great time.
And that's it for another day here.