Guest Blogger, Girl Scout Eleanor K.
Eleanor and astronaut Robert “Hoot” Gibson.
I had so much fun at Advanced Space Academy in Huntsville, Alabama! I want to be an astronaut, so participating in this program helped further my knowledge on space. I also made so many good friends with my “sister” Girl Scouts. We had fun learning about our world and beyond its boundaries.
I learned how people can live in space, and what happens to their bodies because of the zero-gravity environment. I had fun also building rockets and learning about the engineering and physics behind aerodynamics. I learned about how different countries have interacted through the space programs.
My favorite parts of Advanced Space Academy were our missions. We were either put in the Pilot or Mission Specialist tracts. We had four 1 hour missions where we would learn different positions either on the International Space Station (ISS), an orbiter, or in mission control. At the end of the week, we got to do a three hour mission!
I was on the ISS and we performed a crew transfer with the orbiter. To make the mission more challenging, the Crew Trainers would cause anomalies and we would have to figure out how to get through them, such as medical emergencies or a system malfunction. They seemed difficult at the time, but we had loads of fun trying to solve them.
I also got to go scuba diving! We learned about pressure, how the scuba gear works, and about how astronauts train. When we went scuba diving, we got to have fun in low gravity. Some friends and I played basketball with a bowling ball! Advanced Space Academy helped me learn about being an astronaut and I got to have fun with new friends while do it too! I would like to go back to Advanced Space Academy again!
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