So reads the headline from the Summer 1982 Alabama Space & Rocket Center Newsletter!
This newsletter also features a copy of the New York Times article and a number of great photos from Camp!
Ahead of the 40th anniversary of Space Camp, I was digging around the USPTO website and found this document in a very old trademark filing! It had a number of scuffs and USPTO acceptance stamps on it, so I’ve cleaned it up to present here! Enjoy!
The entirety of this year’s Space Camp Hall of Fame Ceremony is now up on YouTube! It really was one of the best events put on by the Space Center in quite some time (and that’s really saying something)!
The staff did a tremendous job, as always! If you watch this year’s and think to yourself, “Oh, I wish I had been there,” I would encourage you to attend future events! It’s worth traveling for, especially if you haven’t been back to Camp in quite some time!
There are also the indivdiual speeches, the Inspiration4 chat, and more in separate videos as listed in the 2022 Space Camp Hall of Fame Playlist.
The early days of Space Camp were heady ones. The camp was a press darling. The New York Times ran an early article, and TV news outlets such as The Today Show and Good Morning America also ran features. Inquiries about Space Camp poured in from around the United States. But in a much bigger, less connected world, international press coverage was virtually nonexistent.
And so it’s quite the novelty to see this article from the December 29, 1983 issue of the Australasian Post out of Australia.
At only two pages, and photos taking up most of the space, there’s not an awful lot of editorial content. But it’s perhaps the earliest lookback at Space Camp I’ve ever seen from an international source.
I hope you enjoy it. You can download a PDF here.
2022 marks the 40th anniversary of Space Camp! This summer, they are celebrating that anniversary with a two-day celebration on June 17th and 18th, 2022.
The celebration begins on the evening of June 17th when Space Camp hosts the Space Camp Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. This will be the first time since the beginning of COVID that the ceremony has been held, having been canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the ongoing global pandemic.
Tickets to the ceremony can be purchased online, and sponsorship opportunities are still available.
Activities for June 18th will include the Alumni Town Hall in the morning, and local brewery Yellowhammer is putting on a benefit for the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation at the brand new Orion Ampitheater in Huntsville! More details including how to get tickets for that event can be found on the T-Minus Music Fest information page.
So if it’s been a while since you’ve been to Space Camp, this 40th-anniversary celebration is the perfect excuse to come on back to Space Camp and join in the festivities!
It has happened again!
Space Camp has accidentally launched kids from Camp into space!
I’m blaming Hoot Gibson this time!
Springtime has marked the end of winter, renewal, rebirth.
For many years, spring has also signed the arrival of local fifth-graders to a Space Camp day camp. From Monday through Thursday, parents drop kids off in the mornings; they go through normal Camp activities–simulators, history lessons, mission training, etc.–and go home in the afternoon. On Friday, they graduate.
The price provided to the schools has for quite some time been $250. That’s certainly a bargain for kids, especially considering that Space Camp’s tuition price has been over $1,000 inflation-adjusted dollars since the earliest days of Space Camp. As the program omits any evening activities, some things undoubtedly get cut, but the fifth grade program has generally been considered a ‘full’ Space Camp program.
This year sees changes to this longstanding program for local kids. The simulated space mission: gone. The price: double. $500. And apparently, there is no place to hold a graduation ceremony, so there won’t be one.
Space Camp’s busy season is obviously the summer, but the fifth-grade program allows Space Camp to train new counselors ahead of summer and generate revenue while their core clientele around the country are still in school. This program has generated quite a lot in revenue over the years, reaching well into the six figures at each participating school. In return, kids all over the Huntsville area get to experience Space Camp, especially those who might not otherwise be able to afford to do so.
Whereas $250 was a steal, $500 is still a good deal, even if a doubling in price might be hard to swallow. Schools that need to fundraise to afford the program are going to have a real problem here. But without the mission…and no graduation?
Is it really Space Camp? Is it really worth the trouble?
Back in the early 2000s, Space Camp had 3 and 4-day programs where groups of kids could come in large groups and experience some Space Camp simulators and learn about space history.
It was called AstroTrek. And it was the clear position of management at the time that AstroTrek attendees were not Space Camp alumni.
What of these kids?
The changes appear to have come suddenly, as I’m told these changes were so sudden that Hampton Cove Elementary was reportedly not even notified of them until they showed up for camp! Oops!
Back in the 80s, there was a pair of popular disc jockeys out of Los Angeles, Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps, who had their own popular, syndicated radio show.
In the early 1990s, they were given their own TV show. It was not successful, lasting only one thirteen-episode season.
But one of those episodes was, in part, shot at Space Camp!
I was lucky enough to find a copy of this episode over at The Internet Archive, and I’ve brought it over to YouTube to make it more easily accessible for fans of Space Camp.
Interestingly, there were a few scenes where they stated they were at U.S. Space Camp, but there were a few other scenes from Space Camp where they made it seem like they were at NASA!
The 2022 Huntsville Comic & Pop Culture Expo is a mere month away, and just today they made the following, remarkably cool post:
That’s right! Turtles at Space Camp!
It’s a really nifty piece of art!
While TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman will be at the Expo signing autographs, you don’t have to be present to get this cover!
They’re available for purchase from the Expo Merch Site in plain, autographed, or graded and autographed versions, and can be shipped to your door!
Today at 9:30 AM Central Time, Space Camp will hold a 30th birthday party for Aviation Challenge!
The event will be live-streamed on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyvoc4FMJg8
A relatively new addition to the Hab1 collection, this brochure is from 1969 and touts the soon-to-open Alabama Space & Rocket Center.
“OPENING FALL 1969,” it reads on the last page of the brochure! That date would prove to be inaccurate. The Space Center would not open until March 17, 1970. That makes this brochure extra interesting in my opinion!
