Space X News

Ros PATTI

Assistant Prinicipal

Space X

On the first day we boarded our flight from Melbourne to San Francisco, pumped with enthusiasm for the following ten days. The first three days were at NASA KSC (Kennedy Space Centre). We completed two courses: ATX (Astronaut Training Experience) and Mars Base. Here we learnt about the lives of astronauts in space and how they live on the ISS (International Space Station). We also learnt about the thousands of people working behind the scenes, such as the Flight Director Officer. We also met John Fabian, an astronaut who took part in two space shuttle orbit missions, one being the STS-7. After our stay at NASA, we moved out of Orlando and landed in Los Angeles. 

We arrived at Knott’s Berry Farm, an enormous theme park. We rode some of the best rides such as Supreme Scream, Silver Bullet, Hangtime and more. Our favourite was Ghostrider because at first, we wanted a slow calming ride after devouring a large Oreo milkshake, but it turned out to be the fastest at the park. However, we did not lose the main purpose: science. We recalled Newton’s laws of motion and learnt how it is applied to the construction of rollercoasters and learnt about other theories like centrifugal force. We then went to Hollywood and saw the handprints of famous actors such as the three Harry Potter Stars. We then went to Disneyland where we enjoyed several rides, delicious food and the friendliness of the staff for 12 hours. It was finished with a firework show above the castle. 

The next day we went to Universal studios. We took the tour and understood how movies are made in sets. We also saw the original Fast and Furious cars, Bumblebee from Transformers, and the ultimate mini from Mr Bean. We then took our flight to San Francisco. There we went to the USS Hornet, the vessel which sunk the most enemy ships in WW2. We were allowed to enter restricted zones and learnt about the science of the ship and how they used machines and tools to track submarines and send messages. We took the city tour of San Francisco as well and walked the entire Golden Gate Bridge with a serene sun set view. 

The next day we went to Alcatraz, a prison where no criminal has escaped alive. We learnt about the dark history of the prison before it was made into a national museum in 1963. We made our way to the Exploratorium, where we were exposed to several different science theories, such as the unique shape of a parabola, sound frequencies, the light spectrum refraction and diffraction. We spent the rest of the evening at Pier 39, were we shopped, ate and enjoyed our last day in America. This trip is now engraved into our memories as a trip of a lifetime where we made new friends, expanded our knowledge, visited a foreign country and most important of all, we had fun; lots of fun.