Space Center Simulations Offer the Right Stuff

Four minutes, 30 seconds to liftoff.

Mission control reports that the shuttle has switched to internal power. I radio confirmation as my eyes wander over the monitors on the flight deck. Outside the forward viewing ports, thin clouds drift through the serene blue of the Florida sky. Perfect launch weather.

“Discovery? Repeat: Do you confirm oxygen vents closed? Over.”

What oxygen vents? Something to do with fuel for the main engine? I search frantically among the banks of switches for anything that mentions “oxygen.” We are falling behind schedule.

Less than two minutes before, the solid engines had ignited and we are committed to launch. At last I spot it, an obscure switch labeled “O2.” I flip it and mumble confirmation over the headset, then glance at the panel again and go cold.

I have vented all the oxygen from the sealed cabin. To the right, my pilot, “Buzz,” a doctor from California, seems unconcerned. He studies the electrical system. Behind me, “Bubba,” the Midwest carpet dealer, mentally rehearses his space walk.

The countdown continues. This motion is going to make for a long two hours.

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The equipment and the mission are simulations, but the tension is real at the Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Start with a generation that grew up with Sputnik, the Mercury astronauts and Apollo on the moon. Imagine a theme park built around space exploration, with real NASA training machines, detailed Hollywood mock-ups of the space shuttle, and the chance to command a shuttle mission from launch to landing. Add some astronauts, a German rocket scientist and the world’s most extensive rocket park.

The result is U.S. Space Camp, a hands-on program that sets the center apart from other collections of space hardware. College-age counselors take children, and adults, through a program of lectures and simulations that are no doubt the closest most of us will ever get to real space flight.

Programs are divided into five levels--three for children and two for adults. Children in grades 4-6 can attend Space Camp, where they build and launch their own model rockets.

Throughout the five-day program, kids can taste astronaut food, ride machines that simulate moon gravity and explore astronaut training facilities at the nearby Marshall Space Flight Center.

The more advanced Space Academy offers a five-day program for children in grades 7-9.

Academy Level II trains high school sophomores, juniors and seniors in a 10-day program patterned on NASA crew training manuals. The intensive 100-hour course includes lectures by rocket engineers and astronauts.

Both adult programs, Levels I and II, are condensed three-day versions of the advanced Academy curriculum, including descent into a two-story water tank like the system used to teach astronauts the tricks of construction in space.

Any student from grades 4-12 may apply to Space Camp. The application must include a recommendation from a classroom or science teacher.

I had never strapped on a tank before, but after some homework and a session with certified scuba instructors, I dived 20 feet to experience simulated weightlessness.

The realities of physics hit home in a new way. A 150-pound steel ball, buoyed weightless underwater and shoved gently toward me, still delivered a jolt through its properties of inertia and mass.

The lesson: In near-earth orbit, I might be able to “lift” a satellite, but not stop it from spinning.

The culmination of each session is a “shuttle mission” combining all the week’s training in a carefully scripted simulation.

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Until midway through our flight, our crew’s mission specialists sit patiently, with only an occasional radio report to make. Now it is time for their “extra-vehicular activity”--the space walk.

An assistant helps them into bulky space suits. They get into white rubber boots and helmets and take their places for the satellite-repair exercise.

One is strapped into a parachute harness attached by cables to a track far overhead. The other steps onto a large mechanical arm like the one used in the repair of phone lines.

The first figure glides out over the shuttle bay like a space age Peter Pan. The second jerks the arm in fits and starts, up and over, to rendezvous near a shiny satellite replica above the shuttle.

This is a quiet time for the commander and pilot, so the counselor overseeing our mission secretly throws a switch on his command panel.

A red light on our emergency panel flashes “Fire.” The pilot and I flip through our emergency cards to find the fire control procedure. We expected something like this, and in less than a minute the light is out. We are getting cocky.

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Not everything runs like clockwork. Coordinating training and machinery for three or more groups simultaneously leads to some confusion and down time.

During my visit, a jet cockpit trainer was out of commission and one of the microgravity simulators, which ride on a cushion of air, had a balky hose. A special early-morning session to rehearse mission assignments started late with a collection of drowsy counselors.

Agendas for the advanced programs are packed. Twelve-hour days are the norm. Breaks for sightseeing are scheduled during each session; the staff reminds participants that the experience is, after all, supposed to be fun.

Campers’ families or others who just want to visit for the day can find less demanding activities.

The center’s Spacedome Theater features movies filmed in the huge new Omnimax format like the ones shown at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. But here films are projected overhead on a shallow planetarium-type screen.

A shuttle launch vibrated our reclining chairs with the rolling thunder. Later we “oohed” and “aahed” like spectators at a fireworks show as panoramas of Earth and the crisp starkness of space filled our field of vision.

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The idea of a museum that would allow children to take part in the excitement of space travel was first promoted by Wernher von Braun, the German rocket genius who immigrated to the United States after World War II.

The museum and rocket park opened in 1970. In 1982, the first U.S. Space Camp program was offered, attracting 747 children. The center later added the advanced sessions for teen-agers and adults. Annual attendance at this three-ring space circus is up to 20,000.

The center is run by the state of Alabama and receives sizable donations of equipment, money and expertise from NASA and a group of aerospace contractors and local corporations.

Campers bunk in compact six-person “sleep stations” in the new multimillion-dollar Space Habitat dormitory, whose futuristic design was inspired by NASA’s proposed space station. Counselors provide supervision.

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The runway at Edwards Air Force Base rises ahead of us. I begin the first of the broad S-turns that will allow us to glide in at the right speed and heading.

I ease the control stick to one side. The hydraulics slowly tip the whole cabin in that direction. I steer back the other way, and again the cabin tilts in response.

I am so intent on keeping the craft centered that I almost forget about landing gear. Wait, that’s the pilot’s job. “Buzz, get the gear.” More fumbling. Armed, deployed, on the ground, with two seconds to spare.

Buzz says nothing, pretending to recheck the switches. Bubba can’t wait to rehash the mission over lunch. I decide to sit here a minute and come down to earth.

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The U.S. Space Camp program has been so successful that an affiliate center (grades 4-7) opened last year, adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center on the east coast of Florida, sponsored in part by NASA’s original Mercury astronauts through their Mercury 7 Foundation. Nippon Steel has been licensed to open a Space World franchise in Japan next spring.

The center has a snack bar for fast food, and a cafeteria. Campers eat all meals at the cafeteria. An informal poll rated the food hot, varied and unexceptional.

Family members can stay at the Huntsville Marriott a short walk away. It offers the usual Marriott facilities including restaurants, and advertises a special Space Camp family rate. Call the hotel at (205) 830-2222.

Programs for both young campers and academy participants run all year. All adult programs take place Friday through Sunday in the fall.

The center recommends early registration for Space Camp and Space Academy programs. Easter holidays and June and July programs fill quickly. Many schools provide credit for students who must miss classes to attend the camp.

Tuition, which includes meals, lodging and all activities, ranges from $425 for the five-day Space Camp fall session to $800 for the 10-day Level II Space Academy summer session. Scholarships are available. Adult sessions cost $450.

For more information and an official U.S. Space Camp/Space Academy application, write the Space & Rocket Center, One Tranquility Base, Huntsville, Ala. 35807-0680, or call toll-free (800) 637-7223 or (205) 837-3400.