American Dynasty

Megan in the Everest Control Room at the Telos Discovery Space Center, Pleasant Grove       Yesterday I stopped by the Telos Discovery Space Center at Canyon Grove Academy, Pleasant Grove to wish my old colleague all the best on behalf of all Troubadours.  I found her sitting in the school's cafeteria pouring over a notebook full of to do's, observations, needs, wants, and goals. She seemed perfectly at home, as she should. Megan and Jon Parker at the Space Center. Megan, like me, survives only by sticky note            Megan is no stranger to running a space center organization.  Megan took the reigns of the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center when I retired at the the end of May 2013. She kept the Space Center together and functioning during what could have been a very difficult year, but wasn't thanks to her skills, professionalism, and dedication to the spirit of the center and its mission. She did an excellent...

Farpoint's 6th Grade Phoenix Squadron The Farpoint Space Education Center's Long Duration Mission Program, A Whole New Way to Experience a Space EdVentures Simulation  Hello Troops, We are well into the new Long Duration Mission program at the Farpoint Space Education Center located at Renaissance Academy in beautiful Lehi, Utah; minutes away from Thanksgiving Point and Utah's Silicon Slopes.  Farpoint is home to the new USS Voyager starship simulator. Farpoint offers local students two after school space clubs: SpaceGuard and Project Voyager.  Farpoint's 5th Grade Scorpion Squadron SpaceGuard is the Long Duration Mission program (LDM) for grades 3 to 9.  Renaissance Academy has 250 students in the club - divided into 27 squadrons of 9 students each.  The squadrons meet five times during the latter half of the school year. We started at the end of January and will end in May. The cadets attend classes and go on missions in the Voyager. The LDM r...

See the Voyager's New Brig Force Field in Action.  An Added Bonus. Watch Jon Parker Play the Ferengi. Classic Watch a short video showing off the Voyager's new brig force field activation system. Isaac Ostler got it to work.  Cool is the word for it. The ship's security officers feel the coolness in every swipe of the card. Also, I watched Jon Parker tell one of my favorite stories A Cry from the Dark . I couldn't resist filming the Ferengi part. Jon does my Ferengi character to a tee. A perfect, flawless rendering of the original. Jon is a great flight director. Seeing him tell my mission was another of those moments that reminds me why I'm in this business.     Space News by Mark Daymont spacerubble.blogspot.com 50 Years ago: Lunar Orbiters Scout for  Landing Sites Lunar Orbiter Engineering Mockup. Fifty years ago, in February 1967, NASA pressed on with the preparations for the Apollo missions despite the recent deaths o...