June 22nd, 2007
Space Camp
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On Sunday I arrived back home in Norway, after a week at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. I had a fantastic week, and I got to know many nice people, learn lots of interesting stuff and experience many new things.
Sunday
After arriving in the U.S. a day late, the rest of the trip to Huntsville went smoothly. When we got to the camp, I was followed to my team for the week, Von Braun (named after the father of the U.S.’ space program — Wernher von Braun).
The rest of the day was spent on orientations and a lecture about the Space Shuttle launch timeline.
Monday
On Monday we did quite a lot. We attended a couple of lectures about rocket science history and a lecture about rocket construction (propellant, guidance and recovery), and we also attended a lecture by Dr. von Tiesenhausen, an early member of the American space program.
In addition to the lectures, we had some outdoors water activities, and in the evening we SCUBA dived in an indoors water tank they had at the camp. We also trained for two of the four 1-hour simulator missions we were to have during the week — for the so-called Alpha mission I was Station Scientist in the Space Station, and for the Bravo mission I was EVA/ACO in Mission Control.
Tuesday
Tuesday was also a quite packed day. We trained for the rest of the four 1-hour missions; for Charlie I was Mission Scientist in Mission Control, and for Delta I was Flight Engineer 1 in the Space Station. We also did our Alpha missions today.
We had lectures about Environmental Control and Life Support Systems, Crew Systems and communications- and computer systems on the Space Shuttle Orbiter and the International Space Station, Russian space history and Apollo history. We also watched a movie in the IMAX theater.
Wednesday
On Wednesday we did our Bravo, Charlie and Delta missions, and we trained for our 6-hour Extended Duration Mission, in which I was Mission Specialist 1 on the Space Shuttle Orbiter and Station Commander on the Space Station. We had lectures about the Space Shuttle’s launch abort modes and about the future of the U.S.’ space program. We also watched another IMAX movie, tried the Space Shot and spent some time in “Area 51″, a team-building obstacle course. In addition we built our own rockets, but we didn’t get to launch them because of the dry weather.
Thursday
On Thursday we did our 6-hour EDM missions, and we spent some more time in Area 51, where we amongst other things climbed a 15 meter tall climbing wall. We also did the Space Shot one more time.
Friday
Friday was graduation day. My team, Von Braun, won the Outstanding Team award. 
We didn’t do much else on Friday, except for riding the G-Force Accelerator, where we got to experience 3 Gs, and shopping in the Space Shop.
The flight back home didn’t proceed without problems, as with the flight to the camp. Our flight from Huntsville to Atlanta was delayed, so we lost the flight from Atlanta to Paris. Thus we had to stay the night at the airport in Atlanta, and in the morning we flew to Boston, stayed in the airport there for about six hours, and then continued on to Paris.
In Paris we had about half an hour from we got off the plane from Boston until the flight to Oslo left, but we actually made it. 
When we arrived in Oslo we had spent in total three days travelling.
As I’ve already said, I had a fantastic week. I met lots of great people and learnt some very interesting stuff. Certainly a trip I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
Posted in Space Camp