[Above: Two observatory telescopes at Chabot Space and Science Center]
On August 5th, 2012, the USS Loma Prieta beamed down a five person away team to the Chabot Space and Science Center. Our mission was to witness NASA’s historical landing of the Curiosity Mars Rover in the Center’s Planetarium holodeck. We arrived early and quickly learned that we were in for much more than we bargained for.
[Above: LT Dolgoff mans the Apollo Lunar Landing simulator]
While searching for LtCmdr Hesser, Ensign Smith and Ensign Sherry, Lt Dolgoff and I were immediately side-tracked by an Apollo lunar lander simulator housed inside a replica of an actual Apollo cockpit. After several disaster landing attempts, the rest of the away team spotted us and we continued our exploration of the facilities together. The team took turns photographing each other inside the cockpit a full size Mercury space capsule replica, trying on space helmets, examining the Center’s many telescopes, and exploring the Bill Nye Climate Lab.
[LT Dolgoff, EN Sherry and EN Smith aboard the Mars spacecraft]
Just when we thought we had expended all our options and were ready to get planetarium seats early for the Mars landing, Ensign Sherry discovered a mysterious room marked ‘air lock’. Like a good red-shirt, Ensign Sherry stepped inside the dark cylindrical room and shut the door. Much to our surprise, he emerged a moment later, alive and with a very exciting report to make. He had just been transported onto a spacecraft headed straight for Mars!
As the entire away team stepped into the mysterious room, we were seemingly transported into the interior of a manned NASA space craft on a scientific mission to mars. The hexagonal ship interior was packed full of scientific stations along the walls, as well as navigation consoles, communications equipment and a medical bay. The ‘mission director’ greeted us as we entered and ushered us to stations. The crew took turns trying to collect martian rock samples, analyzing radioactive material in isolation bays without contaminating the rest of the ship (with very little success), navigating the craft to Olympus Mons, and at one point LtCmdr Hesser and I were even trapped in the airlock’s clean-room.
[Above: EN Smith contains a radiation leak]
[Above: CAPT Perkins at a science console]
[Above: CAPT Perkins and LTCMDR Hesser share Spock’s Wrath of Khan fate]
Having completed our own simulated Mars mission in the nick of time, we quickly ran to get seats in the planetarium, only minutes before Curiosity began its complex descent onto the Martian surface. The “Seven Minutes of Terror” went by without a hitch, and only minutes after making a perfect landing, the crowd at Chabot Space and Science Center celebrated along with the JPL team as Curiosity’s first images of Mars were beamed back.
~Capt. Zach Perkins
Commanding Officer
USS Loma Prieta
Starfleet, Region 4
[Above: Success at JPL! via NASA.tv]
Away Team Crew Manifest:
CAPT Zach Perkins
LT CMDR Tom Hesser
LT Samantha Dolgoff
EN Andy Smith
EN Eden Sherry