Well, I can’t believe it, but Hab1.com has just surpassed 20,000 hits to the homepage!
And it was only this past November that Hab1 reached 10,000 hits!
So, that’s the first 10,000 hits in 1 year, 9 months, and the second 10,000 hits in 9 months!
Whew!
Nathalie and Tony, now 8 weeks into their Space Camp Turkey adventure, have checked in with updates.
A great many more photos have been posted as well, so be sure to check them out when you take a gander!
International Space Camp 2003 officially starts today!
Congratulations to those selected to represent your respective countries at ISC this week. And remember, it’s not just an honor, it’s an adventure!
I hope everyone enjoys their trip to Space Camp as well as the United States of America.
The HabForum has reached a very impressive milestone! 100 Users!
And, what’s even more impressive, the person registered while attending this week’s session of Advanced Space Academy!
It’s quite fitting, I think, that the 100th user should register from camp! Very cool!
That was the message handed out on Monday by the consultants hired by the US Space & Rocket Center to figure out why camp attendance has declined steadily over the past few years.
For more than five hours Monday, the bosses of U.S. Space Camp heard what others think about their business. They listened as both in-house managers and hired consultants presented results and recommendations from recent surveys aimed at finding out how to reverse a decade-long decline in camp attendance.
The bottom line: Spend more money to spread the word about Space Camp and what it can mean to children.
The Huntsville Times has a wonderful piece of coverage on the results of the meetings as well as a rundown of the information the survey generated.
Personally, from the standpoint of a camper, I think the outcome is somewhat a mixed bag. On one hand, the USSRC will probably spend a great deal more on advertising in an effort to get word out about Space Camp (a long overdue measure). On the other hand, if they blindly follow what they think the results say, we’ll see a greater emphasis on shorter duration programs.
I’ll guess we’ll just have to sit back, watch, and hope for the best!
A big step in the effort to figure out how Space Camp officials can boost attendance and profits happened on Monday, as was pointed out by this (brief) story posted today at local Huntsville news station, WAFF.
The article:
Officials at the Space and Rocket Center are working together to come up with ideas on how to increase enrollment at the Center’s Space Camps.
Some space camp programs have seen a 1% decrease in enrollment over the last two years, but that’s enough to concern leaders.
They spent Monday learning about other successfull camps in the country. Marketing ideas were also discussed, hoping to make the difference.
A nice story was published in the Huntsville Times on Sunday stating that Space Camp will soon be holding a retreat to help them determine why Space Camp attendance has been declining for the past 10 years.
Space Camp has also hired an independent firm to help them gather statistics and opinions from those who have and have not attended Space Camp in an effort to help solve the problem.
The Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission, the board that oversees the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, will be looking for answers at a retreat this month.
Are kids less interested in space? Are more interests and distractions such as the Internet and video games competing for attention? Do new school schedules and shorter summer vacations make Space Camp harder to fit in around family vacations, band camps and other activities?
Or is something else at work, something that is, as yet, unidentified?
The whole article can (and should) be read right here.
Just a reminder that if you’re planning to register for a summer session of camp, it would be best to do it within the next 4 days, for when you sign up for a USSRC membership by July 6 and register for a camp session this summer, you’ll also receive $250 off your tuition to camp!
See this post in the HabForum for all of the info!
Update: Expired!
Nathalie and Tony, now 4 weeks into their Space Camp Turkey adventure, have checked in with two posts.
Nathalie’s can be read here, and Tony’s can be read here.
The highlight of the posts? The revelation that this is Nathalie’s eighth summer at Space Camp! We should all be so lucky!
No, that isn’t a typo. Yes, I was surprised, too!
I was flipping through the channels and I thought I saw some rockets out a window on the screen. Not just any rockets though, but USSRC rockets!
Sure enough, TLC’s show, “A Dating Story” was at the USSRC!
It’s on right now as I write this (1:20EST). If you’re on the west coast, you can probably catch it in just under 3 hours.
If you catch this too late (and since the show only has 10 minutes left, you probably will), it might be rerun later. Then again, they seem to churn these shows out one after another, so perhaps not…
It also must have been shot a while ago because the Columbia simulator was still on the TCF.
At any rate, it’s a fun watch!
