Speakers...

Throughtout the week we also were honored to have some incedible people of space history come and talk to us. On the first day Story Musgrave, a six time shuttle astronaut, came to speak to us about his experiences working with the Hubble telescope and really putting the vastness of space into perspective. In the picture above he is talking about one of his mission and he is actually the astronaut in the picture! It is amazing how passionate he is about his life and what he has done. It was obvious that he has not taken his experiences for granted.



In the early 1950s, Dr. Wernher von Braun - credited as being the "father" of the US rocket program - left Germany with a team over 100 true "rocket scientists" and together they created from scratch the rockets which eventually lead to our being able to leave earth's orbit. Well one of those German scientists, Konrad Dannenberg, still lives in Huntsville and at 92 years of age, came to speak to us about what in essence was the start of our space program. It is one thing to read about history, but it is something totally different to hear about it first hand!


And then on the last day we were honored by hearing from one of the key chroniclers of the space program, Ed Buckbee. The very first astronauts were a group of seven fighter jocks - Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, Deke Slayton and Gus Grissom - and they made up the Mercury Program. Well Ed Buckbee was in essense the PR guy who had to promote this brand new space program to the public. Over a 30 year career with NASA he has really been a part of the entire process and during his talk he shared many stories from behind the scenes. But what really hit home for all of us was the fact that it was Ed who actually created Space Camp. If it was not for him, I would not have had the experience that I had - THANK YOU ED!

Ed Buckbee is the author of the incredible book "The Real Space Cowboys" which he wrote with Wally Schirra and chronicles all the backstories of the first astronauts. This is a must read if you have any interest in the space program. You will find a link to this book through Amazon at the very bottom of this page. [Note, if you end up purchasing this book through this link - or anything else at Amazon through this link - I will get a percentage of the sale which I will use to purchase books for my classroom...hey I am a broke school teacher, I take what I can get! hehehe]