Well today was the day we had been waiting for... Ethan's graduation from the Space Academy program at the US Rocket Center. We were excited to see him, and excited to hear all about it. Jason, Em and I all got up, packed up all our belongings, had some breakfast and checked out of the hotel. Graduation was scheduled for 11 am. We arrived at the Rocket Center at 9:00. Family members are given free entrance to the museum and facility on graduation day, so we took advantage of that to show Jason around a bit. When we were walking through the museum and past the mess hall we were surprised early with an Ethan sighting. When he saw us through the window he ran out to say hi, but quickly disappeared back in to rejoin his crew and complete his training. Graduation was still two hours away. ![]() Ethan walks by with some members of his team- The Hyperion Crew. We walked around a discovered a few more sight and exhibits on the grounds, and then Jason and Em rode on the G-force simulator... Em got off and declared- Nope, I won't be going to space. I didn't like that!!!!!! In one corridor we discovered a display celebrating a little movie called - A Smile as Big as the Moon. This movie is the entire reason we were here. Almost three years ago we saw this movie, and Ethan remarked on how awesome space camp would be. Jason and I looked into it of course, and as many of you know he attended Space Camp Canada last summer. At the Canadian camp Ethan was chosen as pilot of his crew and he and his teammates won the silver shuttle award for outstanding mission. Then this fall an email arrived with an invitation to attend camp at the US facility in Huntsville. It was an opportunity of a lifetime...and we accepted. Here are some pictures of the Smile as Big as the Moon exhibit. By now it was getting close to 11 am. So we headed to the graduation hall and found some seats and waited for it to begin. Here is graduation hall. The Academy Graduates were all marched in in procession and it was like a college graduation. They were seated, and they even had a few guest speakers. The first was the director of Space Camp, who spoke about the elite group of individuals in which these kids now belong. Graduates of the program are now considered NASA ALUMNI and she told all the cadets they should be very honoured to belong to it. The second speaker was a sponsor company executive who spoke about future job opportunities that space camp alumni can follow. He talked about the future openings in STEM jobs. (SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS). The third guest speaker, was NASA ASTRONAUT, Dr. Don Thomas. He is a three time missioned astronaut, and Ethan was very excited to learn from him this week. He was involved in the mission simulations, and handed the graduates their diplomas today. Here is Dr. Thomas speaking to the graduates. ![]() Then it was time for the almost 300 graduates to receive their diplomas. Each crew were presented their diplomas together. Each member of the crew is introduced with their name, their state, (or country in our case), and their position on the crew. When Ethan's name was announced, we excitedly found out that he had been chosen as the International Space Station Commander. ( Our very own Chris Hadfield!!!) After the diplomas were given out, it was time for the awards to be announced. - I have video of his graduation- just too large a file to upload here. - There were 4 crew awards given out. 2 awards to the advanced academy- 16 years and older. and 2 awards to the Space Academy - 12- 16 year old. There were 300 graduates making up 16 crews .... and guess what???? Team HYPERION won OUTSTANDING CREW!!!!!! OUR BOY BROUGHT HOME AN AWARD FROM CAMP!!!! You can not imagine how proud and pleased we are for him. Out of the 300 kids- 1 was from Germany, 1 was from Korea, 4 were from the UK and 1 great kid was from Canada. The other 273 were from all over the US. After graduation Ethan ran up to us, and once again exclaimed how much he loved it. Such a wonderful experience for him. By late afternoon we were done and it was time to leave Huntsville, we had some traffic, but once we were back on i-65 we were moving. We are now headed SOUTH again. We stopped for some yummy dinner- BBQ! Mac and Cheese, Ribs, Catfish, Coleslaw and Fresh Watermelon were on our table tonight. Oh, and lets not forget the lemonade. http://www.jimnnicks.com/ And have stopped for the night in Greenville, AL. . We will continue down to Mobile tomorrow and across the coast. But we have just found out that most of Alabama and Mississippi will be joining us there. It is their last weekend of summer. School starts here on Tuesday. It's so nice to have the four of us back together. It's been a wonderful day. But it's time for bed. Night y'all
1 Comment
shirley
8/2/2014 05:45:22 pm
Ethan so proud of you hope you had the best time evet
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