Day 4

Wednesday-We're more than halfway done??!?! Wow! Where did our time go? We've been busy busy busy learning new things, listening to presentations about space procedures, astronomy information, aviation techniques and absorbing new skills in our various roles for missions that we've lost track of time.

The incredibly busy, rigorous schedule is getting to our astronauts, as is being away from home, but we continued on with our work and accomplished a lot today.

Kia took the helm of the mission as Flight Director, in charge of the mission, communicating between the Mission Control "office" and the orbiter for their "Enterprise" mission. She did wonderfully, signed smoothly and kept everyone in line with the mission. Their practice this morning went really well and their real mission will be tomorrow. On the mission, SP was the Mission Specialist and did incredibly well fixing the satellite with her co-astronaut, Jared, from the Maryland School for the Deaf. They hung, suspended from the ceiling (I mean, floating in space) and fixed a broken satellite, getting directions from Mission Control. Also, Dale was the Station Scientist and developed 3 potentially priceless devices for NASA. His favorite was Gluep, a mixture of glue, water and borax which was fun to bounce in the shuttle's node (or hallway)

Kate began her day with a presentation on Russian Space history, followed by training for her "Charlie" mission. Kate took on the demanding role of Pilot, so she had many buttons to push and be in charge of. She controlled the cock pit of the shuttle with her friend Chad, from the Model Secondary School for the Deaf. together they made a great team!

Lee had a movie in the iMAX theatre this morning about various space missions (successful and not-so-successful) then he learned about the equipment that astronauts use everyday in their missions, what they use to eat and how they function in a shuttle on an everyday basis.

After lunch, Kate began her training for flight simulators and took to the skies! All of her group was eager to start and overlooked some of the simple tasks that were needed before lifting off from the earth (turning on the engines, putting down the flaps to get liftoff...etc) but they caught on quickly when they were all "grounded" and couldn't get out of the airport :) As the afternoon and evening progressed, they learned about flying, how to drop bombs, how to dog fight and then had a chance to try all of these things late this evening on each other. Everyone enjoyed the simulators and crashing one another.

Lee did both his "Enterprise" mission training and the ACTUAL "Enterprise" mission as the Station Scientist, developing ideas for new "fuel" for NASA spacecraft. He did an incredible job working with his peers and reporting back to Mission Control about his findings. Lee ended his night on the 1/6th chair which allowed Lee to feel the weightlessness of being on the moon. It was an impossible opportunity to pass up, so I moonwalked too. Did you know you weight 1/6th of your "earth weight" when you're on the moon? 

SP, Kia, and Dale enjoyed rock climbing this afternoon, Dale was very speedy at it! Wow, all of the counselors and chaperones were surprised by how quickly he reached the top of the wall and repelled down. I captured a few pictures, but he was done in the blink of an eye. Kia and SP enjoyed as well and carefully made their way to the top then back down. They also enjoyed searching the museum for various clues and items with their group and learning about mission patches.