Sabine Bellstedt's Story

Space Camp proved to be one of the best weeks of my life. Though it was only a week, I learnt so much, not only about space and science engineering  but also about places and cultures from all around the world. Our week was filled with training for missions, leading up to the missions themselves.

We had fun during our EDM (Extended Duration Mission, lasting for six hours) where we were exposed to many anomalies - broken legs, heads and arms, fatal levels of CO2, communication, and electrical failures.

We had lectures on space medicals, aeronautical design, engineering and much more. We climbed up walls and poles, and jumped off the top, and had to figure out how to cross pools of boiling lava as a team, and how to make sure that everyone survived. For me, the most memorable activity was the scuba diving, in order to test neutral buoyancy, the same way that the astronauts would have trained.

After a gruelling 15 hours of work and fun every day, we were completely exhausted by the end of the week.

But we had also made memories and friends to last a lifetime. My group had 11 people from 10 different countries, all with different languages, accents, cultures and experiences. I had a wonderful time getting to know everyone, people who I will continue to get to know in the future.