April 11, 2013 was a memorable day for the MJGDS students in 4th and 5th grade, they were going to the National Aeronautics Space Administration for short NASA, located in Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA is the place where rockets are built and where they look at the hubble telescope. We took a tour there so that we could see all those things. But we went to the tourist part for the majority of the time instead, of the part where rocket ships are built. I will tell you all of what I thought was fun. There were somethings that were not fun, there is wherever you go. But I thought this trip was very fun and educational.
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First off, waking up at 6:00 in the morning is normal for me, so it didn’t feel any different from an ordinary day. I already had a lunch that was packed from the day before so all I had to do was get dressed and eat breakfast. Then, at 6:35 I set out for the school. Five minutes later I boarded the bus and we set out on the two and half hour trip to Cape Canaveral.
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When we got to the entrance Mrs.Teitelbaum and Mrs. Zavon explained what we would be doing. The day included us going on a thirty minute ride around the area of NASA, where the rockets and shuttles are made. After that, we would be going to see small videos about the Apollo missions. Right after the Apollo mission videos, we were going to go into a room where the actual controls of many Apollo missions were held. We did all of this and it was very interesting.
We found out that the U.S and Russia were in a race to see who could send a man to the moon first. The U.S thought we were losing when Russia launched the very first satellite. We did not know if Russia was watching us or not, so the U.S started the Apollo missions with the hope of landing men on the moon. The first result though would take 18 months to recover from. The date was January 27, 1967 and astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chafee were having a preflight test on board the Apollo 1 when it happened. A flash fire had started aboard the ship and all three astronauts died. As I said, before it took 18 more months for NASA to have their next launch, but when they did they were determined to not let the three men die in vain.
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There, are few things that were worst than this tragedy, but sadly there were two more tragedies that happened to Nasa. One of them, the Challenger started off as one of Nasa’s greatest triumphs. The Challenger was the second shuttle to ever reach space, and in April of 1983 it hit it’s milestone of nine missions. But the Challenger was not destined for more greatness. During the tenth launch of the Challenger on January 28, 1986 tragedy struck. 73 seconds after being launched, the Challenger exploded killing the seven astronauts aboard. The last tragedy came February 1, 2001. The Columbia, a space shuttle re-entering earth’s atmosphere exploded killing seven astronauts aboard.
After watching the videos, we had lunch and then we were given three hours to do as we pleased. Many people decided they wanted to go to the hubble movie that was forty minutes, but for my group which consisted of Benjamin C, Elior L, Zachary S, and I it was time to go to the playground. There we played hide and seek tag for thirty minutes and then we decided to move on and do something else, so we decided to go to the Angry Birds Space Encounter across the street. I was reluctant because I thought it was going to be about how the Angry Birds game is made. I was very wrong.
Wow. It was so fun. First, we went inside and they took our picture in a funny pose, then we went to this station where there are touch screen Angry Birds Puzzles. I was having fun when I saw the rest of the place. The first thing that caught my eye was a game in the corner where there were six humungous slingshots, at the bottom of the slingshots it has either a picture of a blue bird or a red one. Next to each slingshot there was a pile of birds that you were supposed to shoot at pictures of pigs. If somebody with a red bird on their slingshot hit a pig, they would get three points. The same with somebody on the blue bird team. When I played I hit a pig and my team won.
After that, my friend Zach told me there was a mirror maze so we went in. We started off by walking through a hallway that lead you to the maze. After that we had to put our hands in front of our face so we did not bump into walls. Although we still did bump our faces, we managed to find our way to the gift shop. Then on the way back I thought I saw Elior and I definitely heard Benjamin, so I went towards where they were and bumped my head. It was just a reflection of myself. Finally, I got myself out of there and then I went and played this fun laser game.
After, that my group met up with a few other groups, and we all went the simulator that showed you how it felt to blast off into space You can tell it was fun by the fact that only one or two kids from my class did not go on it. At first I thought it was a waste of time because we watched this fifteen minute video about space. But then they brought us to the simulator and the whole time I had my hands up and I was yelling, because it made my cheeks puff out which felt good. After the simulator, I told everybody who did not go that it was actually really fun.
After that we went back to the Angry Birds Encounter and played for the rest of the time, at the end of the trip we went to the gift shop. I had already bought a Plasma Orb, so I did not have any more money to spend. On the way back, Zachary, Elior, Jagger, and I made a Harlem Shake video. THE TRIP WAS VERY FUN.
Pictures from Morah Liat’s blog.
