301’s trip to Astronaut Adventures

Today was the trip that almost wasn’t! Our school bus was extremely late, but thanks to a lot of help from Ms. Suzana in the main office, and a lot of flexibility on the part of the Center for Space Education, we still got to go. I think we all found it worth the wait – it was a really interesting program! We got to experience “inversion goggles,” which astronauts use when they’re training to help simulate the disorienting feeling of weightlessness (top right, below). Then after we went to “Mission Control,” (photo at left below), we went into the Launch Center and experienced a little taste of liftoff. Once we had docked at the Space Station, we passed through an airlock into a lab with multiple stations that gave us a taste of the work astronauts do, including working with robotic arms and working through gloves (photo at bottom right).

A special thanks to our parent chaperones, especially for being such good sports about the long wait for the bus: Hemalee, Jeff, Christopher, Konstantine, Tricia, and Danielle. Frank and Elena, thank you for being so willing to come; I’m sorry that Suzana wasn’t able to reach you in time to tell you that the trip was happening after all. As always, thank you to Tricia Ragone for taking photos; I only took a few, because I’m sure she’ll be posting hers!

Have a restful and happy vacation, and if you celebrate them, Passover and/or Easter!