Space Camp — Local services in Huntsville

TLDR: The harness safety equipment for Space Camp's Advanced Space Academy EVA mission is unsafe. The leg straps (made of VELCRO) fail repeatedly, and the trainers present at the time conceded this was an ongoing issue. However, when confronted with our concerns, Space Camp management has blatantly lied to me and my husband, going so far as to assert that the whole experience was "nominal."

Full review: During training on Day 2, the leg harnesses snapped off twice with Trainer A. Trainer A told me that "this happens sometimes." Eventually, she got the harnesses to hold and sent me out, but I remained terrified, which made it nearly impossible to complete the mission. After training, Trainer A promised to talk to her manager to get better leg harnesses for the mission in the evening. My legs were literally shaking as I got out of the harness and clambered back down to the ground; I felt very scared because my safety had been at risk. Before the mission, I asked Trainer A, "Do I even want to ask about the status of the leg restraints?" She apologetically answered, "No." Then, the harness would not fit over the suit, resulting in bruises on my shoulders from Trainer B trying to get it working. I agreed to do a modified version on the fly; however, once again, the leg harnesses began to fail. I became very distressed, feeling terrified and unsafe. Trainer B was not comfortable using defective harnesses and instead had me walk out with Trainer A so I could still "participate." However, it was barely "participating"; I merely flicked a couple of switches from the ground. Trainer B told me the leg straps had failed on her personally and that management was aware of the issue. She promised to report the incident. Not wanting to ruin the rest of my weekend by reliving the trauma, my husband followed-up and spoke to Chris Myers, who told him our crew trainer had filed a report about the incident. I was unaware that our crew trainer even knew, as she was not present on the simulation floor at that time, so this was news to me. I then received a call from Robin Soprano. I explained what happened, but she kept insisting that the leg straps were "not a primary safety feature" and thus I was never "really" at risk. I explained that it had still caused emotional distress and physical injury, e.g., some "whiplash" and pain to my knees. She ignored me and repeated her talking points. She promised to follow-up but didn't, so my husband reached out again. My husband then spoke to Ms. Soprano and VP Tara Sweeney. VP Sweeney had spoken at our graduation and appeared to really care about Space Camp's reputation and participants. However, they spent the entirety of the phone call denying that ANY incident had occurred, denying that the straps were EVER faulty, and placing blame on us for not bringing this to her in person on graduation day (as though that were a rational thing to do). They denied that any reports had been filed, which directly contradicts Mr. Myers. They asserted the leg harnesses were never defective, which directly contradicts their own employees' admissions. Today, the CEO of Space Camp, Deborah Barnhart, replied to another follow-up email from my husband and fully denied that anything had gone wrong. She asserted that the equipment was completely safe and had never failed, that photographs bore this out, and that the whole experience had been nominal. This is a JOKE; I never even got to complete the actual mission, so there are no photos of me successfully completing the mission in a spacesuit. If you are going to Space Camp, I would seriously counsel you to NOT participate in the EVA harness position. Space Camp officials have shown blatant disregard for participant safety. They appear to care only about parroting a script and denying all issues, so if anything goes wrong with your mission, you will be out of luck. I had wanted to go to Space Camp since I was a young child, but when I got there, I just ended up bawling my eyes out as a grown adult because my safety had been compromised. Talk about...

Read this review carefully as it is bifurcated into The US Space and Rocket Center (Museum and Activities) and Space Camp. For the US Space and Rocket Center, here is a recent Google Review "Nice museum. It only took us a couple of hours to see everything. I think $30/person is a little high for admission. A lot of the items outside need major updating/paint to look better. The Saturn V hall was our favorite part with lots of interesting reading etc." This is an excellent overall summary. The full scale 363 foot Saturn V rocket assembly (huge indoor facility) and associated historical summaries are by far the best overview of America's rocket-based space program (better than the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC), and the other museum collections here are also (smaller) but interesting. There are several rocket and jet simulators that are fun and different. The "GForce" activities are duplicates of Gravitron and Drop Tower rides at amusement parks so nothing new there. But the comment regarding updating is powerful - e.g. there is barely any information on the Hubble, zero on the James Webb, SpaceX, and Spacelink, all frame-braking developments in the last 10 years, so no updates really in a decade other than new 3D simulators. Definitely worth seeing if you are travelling the South, but 1/2 day will be enough for most folks. Now for Space Camp. 3 generations of family came together to visit the US Space and Rocket Center THROUGH the Pathfinder Space Camp program, in our case a three day/2 night weekend which if you participate in all ways includes sleep-in in an onsite dorm building (separated by sex) and three meals per day, and supposed space oriented activities. This is a $350-500 per person program, so you expect a lot. But here is the reality we all agreed on. The dorms are, well, dorms and fun for only the youngest kids, if that. We all chose to instead PAY EXTRA to stay in the Marriott next door (which is also dated but fine). The food was VERY POOR, lowest quality cafeteria-like, but also VERY limited, to the point that after 2 meals we opted to eat elsewhere. But dishearteningly, the staff was also poor quality, mostly young kids following scripts but actually knowing little to nothing about space or history (or in our case, anything since our leader was a recent summer hire). ALL the events were the same as if you did it yourself going to the museum ( and paying for the rides you want, and e.g. lunch if you want) except three activities. One was assembling and then group launching 12" model rockets (which in total tool 3 hours, whoopee). The second was learning about a star/sky simulator called Stellarium (which you can read about on your own and access on your computer, so nothing unique here). The third had GREAT promise ( large group split in 4 groups to enter a large space launch and tracking simulation center with large mockups of parts of space stations and launch management rooms and even pseudo-space walking, all to simulate the future Artemis mission to the moon). But this was highly flawed by terrible communication, poorly trained (kid) leaders (2 of which we felt were on drugs or recovering from a bad night before), and mostly boring and in some cases unrelated steps/activities, with some kids doing things that were "more fun" and some kids bored to tears with reading scripts and trying to do uninteresting experiments without the proper tools even available. Our whole family really liked the Museum complex, historical information, and ride simulators, but could have done ALL of that in 4-5 hours. The "Space Camp" addition added nothing novel or really fun, and until this program is updated to be more interesting, and the staff is paid enough to get motivated leaders who know about space to come to work excited and able to teach, for the price we cannot recommend this part of the program at all. You should also know that the grounds are being updated and that several areas this summer...

My son has always made a strong impression academically, but I never expected it to inspire his 3rd grade teacher to submit an essay to a scholarship program sponsored by LEGO, describing his fascination with space. Imagine my surprise when Mrs. Clarkson informed us the essay was one of 50 nationwide that won an all-expenses paid Space Camp experience for my son! The trip was initially delayed due to COVID, but as my son, Kaleb, turned 9 years old before the event was rescheduled, it was actually advantageous since ages 9 and up are eligible for the week long camp experiences.

Regrettably, Kaleb was (and still is) somewhat overly dependent, had never spent more than two nights away from his mother and I, and was adamant that I accompany him to the Space Camp, despite all my efforts to talk him into attending the week long experience alone. Thankfully, changing the overall plan with the camp registration was surprisingly easy, hassle-free, and still fully accommodated.

As if the all-expenses paid camp experience wasn't incredible enough on it's own, we were greeted at the Hilton Garden Inn with a $250 Visa gift card as compensation for travel and food (in cooperation with Amex, I believe) and enjoyed a two days and nights for FREE! It's as if they paid US $250 to stay! It was so nice, in fact, we ended up paying to stay another night after Space Camp was over and swam in the pool until nightfall.

I can never express my gratitude and appreciation enough to thank LEGO, Amex, and any other sponsors who made our space vacation possible, but above all and especially Mrs. Lindsay Clarkson of Tompkinsville Elementary School... whom I'm sure felt the same sense of happiness and fulfillment as I did listening to Kaleb talk about the time he had with such excitement and enthusiasm, his face would light up!

To this day, he reminisces about that trip and has asked more than a few times if we could go back again some day. It's apparent and safe to say our time and experience there together created fond memories that he will hopefully cherish through the years.

Regardless, I've already begun saving up and planning to "refresh" that memory for him within the next few years because... after all... if his grade school teacher feels inspired enough to encourage and nurture his interests and potential, what kind of Father would I be if I didn't at least put forth HALF the effort she did?

All rambling aside, if you have a child still in school with an interest, intrigue, fascination, or flat out obsession with astronomy and/or outer space, I can absolutely guarantee the camp experience here will be one they won't forget. And perhaps more important than the memories, the equipment, functions, and various activities they'll get to engage in will encourage and support their interests in a way that might not be obvious or apparent right away.

Once camp is over and you've made the trip back home, watch as the afterglow of their experience sparks the kindling underneath their interest or intrigue ... and the fire it lights turns that into sheer fascination. Just TRYING to help my children find something they're passionate about in life gives me a sense of purpose. Imagine if you INTRODUCED them to their...