“We’re going to die! We’re going to die!” The fatalistic exclamation could hardly compete with all of the alarms and alerts wailing on the bridge. Adding to the chaos was a flickering lighting system and orders being shouted without regard for the established chain of command. Even though two of the officers were my sons, I smiled a little as I watched over the remote video feed. Maybe death would be educational.
Ethan and Gerrit, along with a few of Ethan’s friends celebrating his birthday, were far into a mission aboard the USS Phoenix, a simulator at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The mission started out quietly enough — it was actually supposed to be stealthy, in fact.
The space center missions are based on the universe of Star Trek, and in this case, the crew was to fly from Federation space, across the Neutral Zone and into the territory of the Romulan Star Empire. There they were going to steal a prototype for a new Romulan cloaking device with the help of a Federation spy who had inflitrated the science installation where the device was being developed. Of course, this was a violation of all kinds of treaties, so the Phoenix, equipped with a cloaking device itself, would need to sneak past Federation safeguards as well as Romulan patrols.
Each member of the bridge crew had a specific assignment, such as helm control, engineering, or operations. Ethan opted out of his birthday boy privilege to be captain and instead chose tactical. After all, he explained, tactical is in charge of the ship’s weapon systems, and the captain doesn’t even get a computer station.
Operating the ship was not trivial. I heard a little of Gerrit’s training on operations, which included all communications, transporter control, and the tractor beam. He could send close-range, real-time transmissions on bands used by the three main “nations” as well as contact areas in the Phoenix’s simulated additional decks. He could also jam transmissions of other ships, adjusting the beam’s width for highly localized, effective jamming or wide, less effective jamming. Gerrit, as the youngest officer on the bridge, looked a bit overwhelmed at all of the possibilities.
From a simulation perspective, the stations all were really nicely done. I talked with one of the lead programmers, a student aspiring to be a software engineer. All the code was written in-house using the Revolution programming environment running on Macintosh computers. The full magic of the simulator, though, required the talents of the flight director, very much the “man behind the curtain” to the Wizard of Oz.
Megan, the flight director for this mission, let me observe in the control room — an extremely cramped room stuffed full of computers and audio and video equipment. Through various voice modulators she played the roles of the onboard main computer, a crew member that made helpful (and sometimes urgent) suggestions to the bridge, as well as the spy on the science facility. She controlled Romulan patrols that bridge sensors would detect as well as damage to the ship during combat and numerous other details that I couldn’t follow.
There were several funny exchanges during the mission. One boy shouted “There’s a roman numeral ship out there!” Another time, the boys were trying to silence an alarm that was sounding because they had entered the Neutral Zone.
Officer: Computer, turn off that beeping!
Computer: Unauthorized.
Officer: Captain, I think you have to turn it off.
Captain: Um, computer, turn off!
Computer: Main computer shutting down.
Everyone: No! No! No!
Each time the boys accomplished one of the tasks that would further their objective, they raised their arms in a triumphant “Yes!” But even though they were clearly engaged by the simulated mission, suspension of disbelief wasn’t always in effect. One boy sat back during an encounter and said, “Listen to this cool music!”
After transporting the Romulan prototype to their ship, things started falling apart. The Phoenix’s cloaking device went down and Romulan ships started closing in. The boy at helm control couldn’t figure out how to break orbit from the planet and so they started taking enemy fire. Finally they began a mad dash for the Neutral Zone, and in very Star Trek fashion, demanded warp speeds in excess of what the ship was capable of. With the red alert blaring, and the engineering officer trying frantically to fix more and more failing systems, they became sitting ducks on the edge of the Neutral Zone when the warp drive was damaged.
Click to see “Phoenix control room video clip”
(Windows Media)
At their moment of desperation, Megan resorted to deus ex machina, having the Federation ship Constitution tractor beam them out of the Neutral Zone and back into friendly space. In spite of all, their mission was a success. Maybe near death, with a triumphant finish, is educational enough.
Greatjob! Sounds like you had a exciting time. Even Dad enjoyed your fun.
Glad you are all back safe.
What a great story. Wish I had been there.
Crew live long and prosper!
Landon’s version was that it was “freakin’ awesome!” Thanks for the detailed account!