Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center
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[edit] Brief history
The Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center, located in Pleasant Grove, Utah, was started in 1990 by Victor Williamson, an educator at Central Elementary. Initially it was nothing more than an experiment in using the drama of space and the fun of learning activities.
As the years passed, the demand for flights expanded and new ships were commissioned, expanding the fleet of simulators from one to a current total of six: The "Voyager" (1990), the "Odyssey" (1995), the "Galileo" (1999), the "Magellan" (1999), the "Falcon" (2000) (Decommissioned), and the "Phoenix" (2005).
The center and its founder were honored in a ceremony including the Lt. Governor of Utah. At that time, with its five spaceship simulators, it was educating 16,000 students each year. [1]
[edit] The Mission
The mission statement of the Space Center is "A Learning Community Practicing the Discipline of Wonder!" and it is applied everyday with each flight undertaken. Whenever a story is created for a set, it usually involves a social crisis that is taken from our own world such as slavery or international cooperation. When students participate in one of these stories, they are often debriefed at the end of a mission and the Flight Director (the staff member who tells the story and operates the mission) will show them how the story they just participated in either has or is currently occurring in the world.
Students also learn and apply different aspects of astronomy and science in missions. Students get the chance to learn about and interact with black holes, nebulae, asteroids, planets, solar systems, moons, and a variety of other phenomenon that they would only briefly come in contact with through a textbook. Finally, students learn about different technologies, both real and fictional, and it plants the seeds of wonder. Many students who attended the Space Center 15 years are now pursuing fields in science, technology, and space exploration as astronauts, engineers, technicians, computer programmers, and electrical engineers. Students at the local Brigham Young University even have an opportunity to develop consoles and equipment for the Space Center; gadgets such as Tricorders, touch panel equipment, fiber optics systems, and digital/analog control interfaces spread further the discipline of wonder to graduating students.
One hope is that students who are involved with the Space Center will harness this discipline of wonder and solve global problems; help communities, cities, and nations through service rendered; design, build, and program new technologies to make the world a better place; and invent technology that brings us closer to becoming an interstellar human race. Many of these ideas seem far flung but the hope is that by using wonder, students will be able to bring us closer to them.
[edit] Technology
The Space Center employs a variety of different technologies and equipment to achieve its high quality of simulation. In each ship, there is a powerful sound system (including a powerful bass response to simulate the feeling of the reactor core) hooked up to an industry standard mixing board which combines input from a combination of video sources displayed on the main viewer, sound effects computers, CD players, tape decks, microphones, and voice distorters.
The video system is just as complex. Each mission available has a story DVD with clips compiled for specific scenes in a story. This DVD is available at the press of a button on an input switcher along with a loop of stars flying past at warp speed and a loop of generic computer screens used as filler. The video switcher has two sets of buttons on it; one set controls what video is displayed on the main view, the other set allows the control room of the simulator to preview different video inputs without the bridge seeing a change in video. All of the mission DVD's and tapes are made by local volunteers who regularly staff missions at the Space Center.
Each simulator is also equipped with a lighting system allowing both red and white lights to be displayed, red during alerts and white during normal alert levels. Each set of lights is attached to a dimmer in the control room allowing the lights to manually fluctuate in different events during a mission, such as a torpedo impact or power failure. The most advanced set of lights at the Space Center is installed in the Odyssey. It has the standard set of controls for dimming each set of lights as well as controls for flashing the lights and activating rotating red alert lights. In order to ensure that campers are safe by monitoring their positions, a network of closed circuit cameras is also installed at key points on the set. Each simulator has part of the bridge and connected areas of the set monitored at all times.
Finally, the most complex part of each simulator is the computer systems. Each ship has several computers installed. The smallest set, the Galileo, has seven, while the largest set, the Magellan, has 40. Each one of these computers (excluding sound effect computers and tactical [main viewer] computers) is connected to a network allowing communication between computers. In this way, the programs on each of the computers are able to communicate with each other, allowing the control room to monitor the simulation and for computers on the bridge to update each other with information sent from the control room. The programming on each of the computers used to be programmed in HyperCard, but over time the Space Center is beginning to use Revolution Dreamcard by Runtime Revolution. All of the computer programs in use at the Space Center are designed, programmed, and maintained by a crew of volunteer students who want to learn how to program and who also enjoy programming. This same crew is also a part of the mission tapes and DVDs described above.
Private donations paid for the simulators, while the school district pays the salary of director Williamson. 181 volunteers and part-timers help to operate the simulators. [2]
[edit] Current Statistics
Taken from www.SpaceCampUtah.org
Space Center Year 14 (November 8, 1990 - September 25, 2005) Simulators in use: 5 Classrooms in use: 2 Planetariums: 2 StarLabs: one in house and one available for check out.
Staff:
Principal: Colleen Green
Space Center Director: Victor Williamson
Full time Employees: 1
Part time hourly employees: 11
Non-central volunteers (working at least five hours monthly): 102.92% are Alpine District Students in grades seven through twelve.
Central Elementary student volunteers: 81
Class attendance and missions/flights: 8 to 10 classes per week take field trips to the Center's four-hour program
Total missions in all simulators (Nov. 8th 2004 - Sept. 25th 2005): 1,240
Students, teachers, and patrons of the Alpine School District attend the Center this last year. classes, workshops, himulations, and planetarium shows Nov. 8th 2004 - Sept. 25th 2005): 12,737
Total number of participants from November 8, 1990 to August 28, 2005: 172,330
Total number of missions in the Center's simulators from November 8, 1990 to August 28, 2005: 12,682
Out of district participants: Park City, Jordan, Provo, Nebo, Granite, Davis, Weber, Salt Lake City, Murray, Iron, Washington, and Ogden School Districts (November 8, 1990 - September 25, 2005)
Out of state participants: Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, Organ, Colorado, Nevada, California, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Maryland (November 8, 1990 - September 25, 2005)
Out of country participants: Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, France, Germany, Poland, Russia and USSR. (November 8, 1990 - September 25, 2005)
[edit] References
- ^ http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,640193889,00.html] Jeremy Twitchell, "Space center is shining star. Popular program at school in Pl. Grove marks its 15th year." DeseretNews.com. July 11, 2006. Retrieved March 26, 2007
- ^ [1] Sharon Haddock, "Phoenix shuttlecraft ready to take flight." Deseret News (Salt Lake City) May 12, 2005 . Retrieved March 23, 2007
