Daniel Bateman: Camp blog intro

Hello I'm Dan Bateman, Camp Programs Manager at the Cosmosphere. I started working with Future Astronaut Training Program in 1993 as a counselor and now work to make sure we have the most enjoyable camp experience available anywhere.

Welcome to the first Cosmosphere Blog on camps. After 16 summers of working as a counselor and director of the FATP, this one is one of the best summers I can remember. With 21 counselors from across the country and directors from all over Kansas and one from Florida, we are having one of the best camp seasons in memory.

The Falcon (shuttle simulator) received an upgrade that enhanced the graphics package and added the ability to do an AOA, Abort Once Around. We have utilized it with some of the advanced levels of camp and are looking forward to new ways of incorporating it in the future. We also had all of the switches replaced and did some other peripheral upgrades to make our lives easier.

We have had three trips to Houston with some of the best students possible. We take 32 students on a bus to Johnson Space Center after spending two fun-packed days in Hutch. While we are there, we tour the USA (United Space Alliance) facility where space suits, clothes, food and virtually everything that comes into contact with the astronauts is processed. For the first time in 19 years of taking students down, we have been able to do a food panel with real space food. On a couple of occasions, we have even eaten food that was flown and left over from real missions. Our students have impressed everyone at the Space center and everyone else they come in contact with. It is not uncommon to hear NASA employees ask who we are and how we get the students to behave so well and ask such knowledgeable questions. The answer to this and so many other similar questions is without a doubt our fantastic staff of counselors and directors.

Without the dedication of our staff and their never-ending quest to make every week the best week ever for every student that passes through our doors, this program would not be possible. Let it be known that every student who attends programs at the Cosmosphere is going to receive the attention and care that every parent would want when leaving their child in someone else's care. To have 21 college-age students come together with educators from varying backgrounds to provide this level of excellence is truly rare. I hope that if you are reading this with the idea of sending your child to our programs, you will trust that we will do our very best to make it the best investment possible in your child's future. As the summer concludes in three weeks, I will look back at this summer as one of the best of my professional career. I look forward to many more seasons like this one.

More to come about the life and times of the best space-themed camp in the world...