See the First Starship Magellan from the Old Space Center. Imaginarium Theater

See the original Starship Magellan in action.  I filed this in 2016.  It marked the end of the Long Duration Mission our Voyager Club squadrons ran that school year.  The Space Center Voyager Club was divided into several squadrons of about 10 cadets in each.  Each squadron came in about once a month to complete another segment of a year-long mission.  We evaluated the squadrons during the missions and awarded points in several categories.  The points determined our Top Squadron positions and the awards given at the end of the school year.  

In this video, you will see the Lion Squadron during their last mission segment.  I hope you enjoy seeing Magellan I. It was a wonderful simulator that hosted thousands of students during its service.  Today's Magellan continues the original Magellan's mission.      

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The Space Center's Volunteer Handbook from 2017 (Much of it taken from an Earlier Handbook). See the Old Odyssey in Action: Christine's Last Mission Before Retirement. Imaginarium Theater

Volunteering has been the lifeblood and heart of the Space Center since it first opened its doors in November 1990.  In fact, well over 90% of the Space Center's staff over all those years came from our volunteer corps.  Today, over 80 people ranging in age from 12 to 68 put in many volunteer hours per month to support the Center and its programs. 

The first volunteers were members of my sixth-grade class and former members of Central Elementary School's Young Astronaut Club.  They helped with field trips and the overnight camps.  The program quickly grew as students from schools across the district got involved. 

Photos of the Space Center's Volunteer Manual are included in this post.  This manual was printed in 2017 and distributed to all volunteers.  Much of it came from an earlier version of the manual.  

For those of you readers who are former volunteers, enjoy a quick stroll down memory lane.  For our current volunteers, you'll notice the program hasn't changed much over the last 9 years, except, of course, for the new Space Center building.  

The Space Center's Volunteer Manual, circa 2017 

See the Old Odyssey in Action

Watch a master flight director at work as she concludes her final mission as an employee of the Space Center.  Christine was the Odyssey's Set Director.  In today's video, you'll see her complete her final mission after serving for many years at the Space Center in Space Service.  She is flying a crew in the Odyssey II in the old Space Center building.  

The original Odyssey was torn down in 2013 and replaced with a new Odyssey shortly thereafter.  Even though the simulator bridge was different, the builders used the original Odyssey's Control Room for the new Odyssey.  

Isn't it amazing to see how Christine plays the ship, just like a musician plays a fine instrument.  Her hands dart from the keyboard to the soundboard to the voice synthesizer to video remote controls and lights.  

It is people like Christine who made the Space Center what it is today, and today's flight directors carry on her legacy in their professionalism and talent.     

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The Space Center Invites You to the Planetarium to Experience Beams and Screams, Just Right for the Halloween Season. The Space Place Offers FlightMares for Hallween. A Four Hour Mission Aboard the Starship Voyager. Updates from our Friends at Mission.io. Logan Sidwell Recognized as Local Author. Space News. The Imaginarium Theater

How About a Four-Hour Scary Halloween Mission in Utah's Largest Starship Simulator, the USS Voyager at The Space Place 

From our Friends at Mission.io

A Tour of Mission.io's World Headquarters in Provo, Utah. This is where I record the computer's voice for the Mission.io simulations.  Great things are happening in this simple office tucked away in the Provo riverbottoms — an educational revolution!

Meet Ralph, One of the Mission.io Simulations' Characters

Logan Sidwell, A Local Author and Former Space Center Staff Member, Named one of Five Notable Reads in Speculative Fiction for 2026

 

Yesterday, the Utah Book Awards named me one of Utah's five Notable Reads in Speculative Fiction for 2026. I was joined by friends from my writing world, my engineering world, and even a college roommate. Sharing my book with others has been a joy, and the surprise messages from readers have given me all the energy I need to keep going. Here's to hoping I get to have another celebration like this soon! Next time I'll really put up a fight against Brandon Sanderson.


Space News Update
by Mark Daymont

Congrats to NASA and SpaceX on the successful launch and docking of Crew-13 to the International Space Station. Their flight was the fastest ground-to-docking flight to the ISS of an American spacecraft (the Russians still have us beat). Below are ROSCOSMOS cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, NASA astronauts Luke Delaney and Jessica Watkins (Pilot and Commander), and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut and Mission Specialist Joshua Kutryk. The flight lasted less than 8 hours aboard the spacecraft "Grace."

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StormTeam Simulations Space Center Update. It is Flightmares at Renaissance Academy's The Space Place. Come do a New Mission Called "The Void" on the Starship Voyager . The Imaginarium Theater

Hi everyone!

Something exciting is happening with StormTeam Simulations Space Center.

StormTeam creates immersive mission experiences that help participants practice leadership, teamwork, communication, problem-solving, and decision-making under pressure. Whether the mission involves exploration, science, operations, or crisis response, the goal is always the same: help people learn by doing.

Many of these skills are the same skills used every day by leaders in education, business, technology, public service, and the space industry.

Recently, StormTeam reached an important milestone. The systems and ideas that began years ago through Space EdVentures have continued to grow and evolve into new omni-domain applications spanning education, simulation, leadership development, technology, and mixed-reality experiences across white-collar, academia, entertainment, and defense sectors.

What began as a passion for immersive missions has expanded into opportunities to explore how simulation-based learning can help people develop real-world leadership and teamwork skills.

The vision that inspired my novel STORMTEAM, and the experiences that began years ago at the original Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center, continue to guide that mission today.

Perhaps most importantly, the goal remains unchanged:

Help people grow.

Help people learn.

Help people discover what they can accomplish together.

To bring out the best in everyone.

Jordan Foutin, From his Days as a Space Center Flight Director

Many of us first experienced that feeling through Space EdVentures. It continues to inspire everything StormTeam is building today.

More updates will follow as the journey continues.

AD ASTRA!
Jordan R. Foutin, MBA, BSc, ELC, ALC, PhD (Cand.)
Founder, Author, CEO | StormTeam Simulations
Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | X

It's the Halloween Season at Renaissance Academy's The Space Place. Flightmare's New Mission, "The Void," Told for the First Time Yesterday

The Space Place at Renaissance Academy ran the first Flightmares for an enthusiastic crew yesterday. The new mission is called "The Void". It was written by me, with the landing party "away missions" written by Megan and Bracken. The Fright Flight ran from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Bracken Funk was the Flight Director, Megan Warner was second chair, and Lindshey Matus was the Voyager's holographic doctor.

The Dream Team on the Starship Voyager. TheSpacePlace.org

Megan and our Voyager Club Volunteers Dream Team for the First Telling of "The Void", The New Flightmares Mission at The Space Place. (Kai, Kaden, Mica, Sam, Simon, Shayan, and Harper)

Flightmares are special scary missions used only during the Halloween season. Flightmare missions are scarier than the Center's regular stories and are designed to haunt and frighten. Fun for all 5th graders and above! Invite friends from anywhere, and enjoy a very scary mission in the Voyager!

The First Flightmares Crew and the First Crew to do the new Mission, "The Void"

This was taken at the Start of the Mission

The After-the-Mission Photo. I guess the mission had its Desired Effect

To book a reservation for yourself or a group of friends, go to TheSpacePlace.org/flightmares.

For questions, feel free to reach out to Bracken at director@thespaceplace.org.

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The Space Center and Pleasant Grove High School Starts the Robotics and Electronics Club. The Space Center's New Halloween Planetarium Laser Show. A Video From our Friends at Mobile Space Adventures in Austin, Texas. Imaginarium Theater

The Space Center Partners with Pleasant Grove High School to Create the Space Center Robotics and Electronics Club

     The Space Center and PG High School are the co-sponsors of this new high school club.  Club members will design, 3D print, and wire new small robots to be deployed at the Space Center.  This course is an excellent way for high school students to learn robotics from experts in the field. 

It is Halloween Time at the Space Center. Get your Tickets Today.

A Post from our Friends in Austin, Texas. 

The Space Center's original method of simulator-based experiential learning spreads!

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Updates from the Discovery Space Center at the American Heritage School in American Fork. Imaginairum Theater

   

Alex Debirk
  

Alex DeBirk, a physics teacher at American Heritage School in American Fork, is also the director of the school's Discovery Space Center.  The DSC has two starship simulators, the Discovery and the Galileo.  For you old-timers, it is the Galileo that sat in Central School's cafeteria for several years before the school was demolished. 

I haven't been able to get to the Discovery Space Center for a long time, so I asked Alex to send a summary of the program.  Alex sent the following.

 Discovery Space Center News.  September 2026

• Our program is chugging along, starting its 5th season flying for 5th through 8th grades here at the school.
• This year, I have assembled an "Advanced Space Simulation" class with my top 8 staff members, with the goal of making the center fully open to private bookings, not just our own.
• Our crack team is moving ahead with building new controls for the modern age and has made significant progress.
• Our set is growing. The Galileo is fully functional and new missions are in the works. We also have an engineering tunnel, very similar to the old Odyssey, in the works, and a vaunted Space Window, something we've always wanted.
• My after-school club is doing well at around 15- 20 members. One of our recent features came from student requests for a galaxy map to base stories on. Well, our Farpoint Map is based on real stars, and that's hard to view in 2D, so I went ahead and made a 3D interactive map that includes all stars within 25 LY, reasonable stars out to 150 LY, and all naked-eye visible stars out to 400 LY. 

The Starship Discovery at the Discovery Space Center

The Galileo's Interior at the Discovery Space Center

This has made a great map of ~7000 stars (all real, and where known exoplanets occur, those are also included). We have included Farpoint information, too, like House affiliation (only Earth and Mars so far; Cardilir, Tinarrah, etc. are coming). This map has lots of features to look at all stars, a local neighborhood around a star, certain classes, or just habitable stars. Double-click or search for a star to zoom in on it and view only its local mode within a specified radius. Check it out here: 

https://americanheritage.github.io/FarpointGalaxyMap/

Alex Debirk

The Farpoint Universe Star Map

     The Farpoint Universe is a collaborative effort by me and several people, including Bracken Funk and Alex Debirk.  This unique universe provides the thematic and structural basis for missions told at The Discovery Space Center at The Space Place at Renaissance Academy. 

     The star map Alex created is awesome.  I just had to add my thoughts on its introduction to the general Space EdVenturing community.  

     Thanks, Alex, for doing this.  Please check it out by clicking on the link above and have some fun with the controls.  

Victor   

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Down Memory Lane: The Old Rank Advancement Forms and Rank Lanyards. The Acting Department at the Space Center Presents Three Workshops to Prepare for the Tavern Night Social in October. Imaginarium Theater.

 

The Space Center's Original Rank Advancement Form from the 1990's

I'm not sure who sent this to me, but thank you to whoever it was.  This is the Space Center's first Rank Advancement Form, given to everyone who attended a Friday night Overnight Camp.  We did Friday Overnight Camps nearly every weekend year-round.  Back then, we had three starships: Voyager, Odyssey, and Galileo, and 14 rank levels.  You will notice next to each mentioned rank is an F and a C number. F stood for Flight Hours, and C meant Class Hours.  Campers earned class hours for time spent in mission briefings, field trip lessons, and the Space Center's many Boy Scout merit badge classes.  You also earned class hours for coming on a three-day overnight camp in the summers. One of the summer camp rotations was a four-hour class session. 

Campers with their Rank Lanyards outside the Galileo

It was the attendees' responsibility not to lose this form. The Space Center didn't track hours.  Visitors brought their rank form with them whenever they came to a camp, field trip, or class.  They received a new one when they left with their updated hours.  

Campers Earning Class Hours

Ship positions were given out based on a camper's rank.  Campers wore rank lanyards during summer camps to identify their rank and access the special perks we offered: First pick of ship jobs, first pick of sleeping accommodations, sometimes first in line for meals, etc. The ranks were one way we encouraged people to return often. 

The Magellan Crew with Rank Lanyards preparing to receive their uniforms and board the ship

The New and Improved Rank Advancement Form from the 2000's

We switched to this new and improved rank advancement form in the late 1990's and 2000's.  One of our brainiac programming class graduates created a nifty program for me.  All I had to do was pull up the program, type in the visitor's name and their new hours, and PRESTO, out would come these sheets ready to go home with the camper.  You can see that Austin came to the Space Center on March 7, 2003, by the Stardate.  I really like our old Space Center description under the name:  "A Utah Arts, Sciences, Technology Education Initiative".  Perhaps we should bring that back??  

Do any of you old-timers out there still have your old rank advancement form? Send a photo. Better yet, send any photos you may have of your old days at the Space Center.  It would be appreciated.  

Mr. Williamson  

The Space Center's Voyager Club Acting Department and the Upcoming Tavern Night Social for Volunteers and Staff      

Tyler Weight. Department Instructor

The Space Center has an acting department dedicated to improving our volunteers' acting skills and people skills.  Tyler Weight is our instructor.  Tyler is a longtime Space Center volunteer and an all-around fantastic actor.  He has what I call "Room Presence".  

The topic of Saturday's class was "The World of Character Building". 

The class description: "The world of character building revolves not only around what a character does, but also why they do it the way they do, or what is going on “behind the scenes.” Most characters created at the space center go through the same process we will go through to create such a memorable character. The lessons learned here will not only help you with our tavern night, but also help you understand your own characters that you create for yourselves."

Saturday's Group of Budding Thespians

The follow-up workshop will be held on Sept. 26 from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM at the Space Center. It is titled "The Art of Costuming.

The class description: 

Costuming helps bring a character to life! However, you wouldn’t expect a doctor or a military commander to dress up like the homeless person down the street. So for this workshop, we will focus on how costuming can influence our crews to make you a memorable character they will long remember. This will also help you as you think about your character for our Tavern night and how they would be dressed. There will be games galore for us to try putting different costume pieces together and getting others to guess what type of character we are.

The final workshop in the series of three will be held on October 10 from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM at the Space Center. It is titled "Improv and the Role it Plays in Acting"

The class description: 

Who doesn’t love improving something? Whether it’s the crew throwing you a curveball and you have to react fast to keep yourself in character, or just going with the flow, you find that improv is at the heart of acting at the Space Center. We will go over some acting points and tips, and we will also have plenty of games to put our brains and wits to the test, coming up with and acting out scenes right out of a hat! During our tavern night, you will not know exactly who or what you may come across, so you might have to think right off the top of your head about what to say next!

Tavern Night is the final culmination of the series. It will be held on October 15 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM and will be open to all Space Center volunteers and staff. Participants will socialize in a fictional off-world tavern (think of the cantina in Star Wars) where they can demonstrate all the skills they've learned. It will be a great night full of fun and games.

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