only five people who went to Space Camp ® became astronauts

i'm sad to see you're in the pocket of big space

I went to space camp. Didn’t not become an astronaut. Story checks out.

the relevant percentage isn't the percentage of space campers that became astronauts, but the percentage of astronauts that did space camp.

a total of 536 people have been to space if that helps clarify your thinking btw

*quietly accepts manila envelope from big space, inc*

yeah i was going to suggest it's a "necessary but not sufficient" type of thing, but apparently not even close to necessary

tbf spaeships are somewhat less common than restaurants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISPHII9F1nQ

otoh it seems likely enough that any perceived correlation with space camp and space travel is statistical noise or just reflects that the kind of adult likely to pursue a career in space, will as a child be likely to seek out space camp, and as a teen, to have a report due on space

tbh i would've given ANYTHING to go to space camp

(great cast for that movie of the week btw)

I went to space camp on a scholarship because I won a writing contest in 5th grade. At that age they don't weed you out for being too weird or myopic or crazy like they do for real astronauts. AFAICT anyone's chances of becoming an astronaut are much more down to genetics and good fortune than they are to inclination; just like anything else in our meritocracy.

i wanted to go to space camp so badly that i thought i was going to lose my mind
but my parents assured me that 1) they weren't paying for it and 2) no one else would pay for me to do it (i did not enter any contests) so i should find a more realistic dream
i don't know that i ever really found that dream

I went to Space Camp in 8th grade, then later got my aerospace degree. I did not wind up going to the Air Force Academy, tho I was close.

I went to Space Camp in the eighties (I already lived in Huntsville, AL, so it was local, plus my dad got some kind of NASA contractor discount), but I watched some doc about modern day Space Camp a year or two ago and it's waaaaaaay different now. I'd be surprised if the number of alumni who go on to become astronauts doesn't increase in the coming decades.

I wanted to go to Space Camp
I wanted to go so bad
But now that I went to Space Camp
my chances of being an astronaut have not been raised appreciably - fuck you, big space!

Someone opened up a hatch and out stepped Johnny Glenn
Bouncin around in a space suit lookin' old as he'd ever been
If you gotta go to Space Camp, I hope opportunity knocks
Cos if I can't fly that shuttle, I'd rather buy moon rocks

I went to Space Camp too. I went before and after the movie in the 80's came out. It was quite different.

Not that they would have taken me, but I'm glad I didn't fly in the Space Shuttle. Obviously a hideously designed deathtrap in retrospect.

The thing about the movie that's so dumb (well, besides all of it) is that they just hop in a jeep and go look at the shuttle on the launch pad one night. irl that's a 12-13 hour drive.

i can't believe so many of you went to space camp. i hate you all.

hey, c'mon, it was a popular movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4F4SbGtqL4

Psssst you can still go to Space Camp, you know.

https://www.spacecamp.com/adult

https://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/adult-space-camp-is-a-thing-that-actually-exists-and-we-went

oh man did not know and am nowhere near alabama but #lifegoals

the engineer who did most poorly on exams went to space camp and talked about being an astronaut.

Only five people who went to Space Camp became astronauts

Well, to be fair, put it in perspective. That means Space Camp has produced a lot more astronauts than space rock has.

It means more Space Camp alumni have been to space than Parliament/Funkadelic members have. I don't believe any of the Houston Astros have become astronauts either.

In a 2012 interview with The A.V. Club, Lea Thompson mentioned that "I've had a lot of people come up to me and say that they became physicists or inventors, how much they loved that movie and how much it inspired them."

At least four Space Camp alumni also went on to become ilxors, so that's important to mention in the placement rate as well.

"You don't even belong here at Space Camp!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8tFzqu7xFY

iirc, my 7th or 8th grade class had a field trip to Space Camp but me and my friend got in some kind of tussle and I ripped his shirt and we had to stay behind!

I'm afraid that every time I see the phrase "Space Camp" I am hearing it to the tune of Peter Dinklage's "Space Pants."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XaeR3P7pf4

xp I got kicked out of marine biology camp for calling one of the campers a bitch but in my defense she was totally being a bitch

And you are now a marine biologist, right?

All of you people went to space camp? Wtf?

I loved that movie as a kid. No idea how many times I must have watched it but it was a lot.

i can swim

The cockpit scene(about 09:00 in) was, in hindsight, one of my formative cinematic experiences when I saw it in the theater at age 9 with friends & family. I would later quote lines from it when part of the cockpit crew of our own mission four years later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?=WX08F9JcJr8

Also, wow, this movie bombed harder than I remember, but helluva cast. Mr Jennifer Aniston, Ladies & Gentlemen!

would have been better if they did try to land in White Plains NY

I think you fail Space Camp and they don't let you be an astronaut if you do that.

https://gizmodo.com/5244564/confessions-of-a-space-camp-alum

We'd made it through the whole mission and were about to re-enter when our window of opportunity somehow closed, and we needed to pick a new landing site. The multiple choice options included White Plains and White Sands. White Plains. White Sands. They sound similar, right? I mean, I grew up in Indiana, so they were equally distant from my geographic frame of reference, and I was the product of the American education system, so I probably didn't even have a geographic frame of reference. I suggested that we go to White Plains. Stressed it, over the weak protests of my teammates. I was damn sure. I reasoned with them over the intercom: It was a plain, and if we were in trouble, hell, we'd at least be able to put this sucker down on flat land.

I was wrong. White Plains, being a densely populated NYC suburb, is not a good place to land the Space Shuttle. Not only that, it's in the wrong direction, if you miss your window over Florida. White Sands, New Mexico, all you Yeager fans surely know, is a fine place to crash land just about anything.