Thoughts from Thursday

Hello everyone

We hope you are enjoying the start of the Easter break and enjoying Hot Cross Buns.  I'm sure you all bought some at the supermarket in the mad rush last night.  I haven't seen or smelt a hot cross bun anywhere.  I thought we were in the conservative south and they would have more Easter traditions. The shops are full of chocolate but no buns.  We have also been asking "will you be open on Good Friday" and everywhere seems to be.  We had thought about an Easter egg hunt in Florida but quickly realised in the heat that it may be a disaster that would turn into a feast for ants.  But we may think of something. 

The students are on their missions today and we have had little luck in seeing them.  The timetable they give us is subject to change- and today it has been "all turned around" as they say here in the south.  So we walk for twenty minutes to see rocket launches only to find them not there.  So we have had a frustrating day.

The students however do come home with stacks of photos that the Camp Counsellors have been taking.  There is another big international group here at the moment- from Melbourne.  It has been really useful as they are linked with a Space Ambassador- this person can get behind the scenes and take photos in the areas we aren't allowed.  They Aussies are going to send us their photos- so we are quite looking forward to that.
One of the goals of the missions is to really reinforce to the students how team work really works.  The pilots may get the glory but there is an awful lot of other work that goes on to get you there.  If you are going to sit on a big bomb and be blown into space you want to know that the person doing up the screws has got it right.  The students really do understand the importance of working together once they have been through the missions.  In the Saturn V museum they really pay tribute to all of the engineers and mission control specialists that brought it all together.  It really is a museum that acknowledges the significance of science and technology.  After my comment yesterday about the control systems I went back to the museum to find out more- I took photos of the three gyroscopes that were used to control the flight path of the Saturn V rocket.  This information was fed back to mission control where the flight path could be corrected.  (OK so I thought it was interesting)
So we haven't really seen much of the students today- but when we do they are buzzing.  Our quote of the day comes from Kamen- "I really miss my Mums cooking"  The food has been pretty challenging at times. 

We are hoping to be able to being you comments from the missions tomorrow. 

Take Care

Louisa 

The photo shows the gyroscope and map reading tools that were used to measure angles and trajectories.  (PS I know that map reading tools is the wrong term- an Easter egg to the person who corrects me)