filed under Student Blogs October 24th, 2005 Mr Mehmi
Three intensive days at The Kennedy Space Center.
This is a very quick summary of what we have been getting up to.
Day one
Visited the Saturn V rocket. It was huge…
This was a fully functional rocket: it was never sent into spce because the saturn v programme was superceded.
Had a cheese + tomato pizza for lunch in the restaurant just to the right of this rocket.
Tour of the museum.
A picture of myself outside a replica of the inside of the lunar module.
Visited the center for space education.
(This photo is blurry- can you find our 4 students?).The pupils participated in variuos educational activities: making a model robotic grabber, investigating movemnet in zero gravity and enhancing skills in scientific enquiry.
Had the infamous all you can eat chinese for dinner.
Day 2
We returned to the KSC for some astronaut training.
I have good videos of us trying out this machine which tests your ability to withstand disorientating motion. Your seat moves about randomly as the three circles rotate. It was very fast and left you feeling a bit dizzy afterwoods.
Here Archana is experiencing what it would be like to move around in the lower gravity of the moon. She is bouncing about on a shortened bungee cord.
It was a breeze for our astronaut in training.
Lawrence bouncing about on the moon.
There was also a simulator of a buggy trip on mars and a 4g ride which allows you to experience the forces during a take off.
We spent 30 mins in a Wal-Mart. We had dinner at an Italian Grill restaurant: nice food but huge portions. As we waited to be seated we noticed lots of customers leaving with what we thought were take-aways. The waitresses ask, "Should I box that for you or are you still working it?" as you strugle to finish. Most customers take there left-overs home to finish them later!
Day three.
We toured Cape Canaveral.
The team oustide the huge Vehicle Assembly building. The space shuttle is put together in this building -the 3rd largest in the world.
We had lunch at a Fish Grill Restaurant. Missing home, I had the iclandic cod with fries (fish and chips). I was a bit shocked to receive 3 portions of cod. Lawrence was adventourous as ever and tried the gaiter tails, apparently they tasted like chewy chicken.
There was a thunderstorm: no rain but continous lightning. We have been getting back to the hotel between 9 and 10 after starting out at 9 a.m. So, the pupils tend to watch a bit of tv and go to sleep. There is little time for blogging! All of the pupils have been gettting along well and have enjoyed the visit so far. Archana has been keeping an impressive and very detailed diary.
Wilma should hit land in about 8 hours. Our flight for Texas leaves at 12p.m. our time so we should just miss it. There is nothing to worry about.
Mr Mehmi
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Hello everyone. Brilliant pictures. Thanks for getting in touch because it was very quiet on the blog yesterday. i’m happy to see a picture of Archana, It’s very strange to not hear from her since Thursday but I can see all the children are enjoying themselves and It is a very busy time for them. Lawrence cheers us up and Rahat gets very hungry when he read what lawrence had for lunch. Anyway have a safe trip to Housten and look after each other from chandra
We are keeping our fingers crossed about you flying out before Wilma blows in, no Flintstone jokes until we know that you are safely away.
It all sounds great but did we send you on a space tour or a cooks tour, you seem to be really enjoying the food. Gator tails huh! Watch out for Lawrence, he may get a little snappy later.
It was great to see the photographs of the students taking part in the astonaut training activities and your photos of Kennedy. You’ll have to sit down with Richard A. when you get back and edit them together with your videos to make your own space camp movie.
Keep on having fun and making great memories,
Pete
Sounds like you’re having fun, the pictures look ace. I bet you’re gonna find it hard to come back home afterwards! Best wishes from everyone in Huddersfield xxx
Just a note to everyone watching. Although the group missed the worst of the winds from Hurricane Wilma. It looked as though they had some of the worst of the rain where they were.
The good news seems to be that even though a lot of flights were cancelled at Orlando, their flight CO1487 was not! Not only that but according to Houston airport (now 6:10pm our time) it should arrive in Texas on time and the weather is fine!
Just hope they made it to the airport in time through all the rain!
But they should be just fine.
Peter
Continental flight CO1487 has LANDED SAFELY at Houston. In the end it took off about half an hour late from Orlando and arrived half and hour late.
What a bonus for everyone to see part of the power of a Category 3 hurricane and it hasn
hi, you look like your having fun
wow