space Archives - One Delightful Life

Disclosure: The Cosmosphere sponsored this post; however, all opinions are my own. Some photographs were provided by the Cosmosphere, and others were taken by me.

At the Cosmosphere (1100 N. Plum, Hutchinson, Kansas), you can experience the story of the Space Race through the most extensive combined collection of U.S. and Soviet-era space artifacts worldwide. People travel from across the globe to enjoy Kansas’ only Smithsonian-affiliated museum and science education center.

When you walk into the Hall of Space Museum, you are greeted by an SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, which is only the beginning of an awe-inspiring visit. Other on-site artifacts include the Gemini X, authentic Apollo 13 Odyssey, V-1 and V-2 rockets, and Sputnik. Walking through the museum, you can expect to see an actual Apollo 11 Moon rock, astronaut suits, space equipment, and a scaled lunar module.

Other attractions include a 4k digital, two-story dome theater, Dr. Goddard’s Lab (rocket science brought to life!), a planetarium, and CosmoKids. The Cosmosphere emphasizes STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education. The CosmoKids interactive play area includes hands-on activities from air rockets to a gravity well for young explorers.

Only 50 miles from Wichita, the Cosmosphere is open Wednesday-Sunday.

The space museum is fun for the entire family, and young visitors can register for Cosmosphere Camps. The educational opportunities teach kids about problem-solving and exploration, from building a better lander to flying a drone to battling programmed robots.

I had the opportunity to go behind the scenes and learn more about Cosmosphere Camps, an opportunity for youth grades 4-10 to learn more about the journey to space and exploration. It was an incredible experience that I’ll never forget! I highly recommend that parents register their children for one of the camps. The sessions let kids enjoy the thrill of space while having fun at camp! Get a glimpse of what kids can expect here.

Mission Control Astro Lab: Complete a mission to dock with the Astro Lab using the Cosmosphere’s Mission Control Center and the Astralis spacecraft simulator. Photo: Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS, cosmo.org.

CAMPS

LUNAR BASE (Entering 4-5 Grade, 4 Half Days)

Campers discover the exciting challenges of living on the Moon as they work with their team to create a lunar colony and experience science hands-on. From learning how to make ice cream from liquid nitrogen to studying the phases of the Moon using Oreo cookies, Lunar Base opens kids’ minds to the journey of space travel.

During my experience at Lunar Base, I learned how to build a better lander. I was provided a set of supplies to handcraft a moon lander that (hopefully!) would withstand a two-story drop without harming the astronauts (aka marshmallows). Only one astronaut survived, so in retrospect, my lander should have been designed with better shock absorbers, a lesson in engineering!

Following the exercise, a STEM educator took me on a Hall of Space Museum tour and explained the Space Race’s historical significance. The experience during Lunar Base is one that all kids would enjoy in this age group. Learn more and register here.

Lunar Base: Campers experience making liquid nitrogen ice cream. Image: Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS, cosmo.org

MERITS OF SPACE III (Entering 8-10 Grade, 6 Days, 5 Overnights)

During this camp, scouts work to complete a mission to observe the Moon from lunar orbit. They launch high-powered rockets, pilot drones, program robots using code, and produce a press conference to report their findings from the mission. Campers can expect to work to overcome obstacles while working with technology and use their communication skills.

I tried flying a drone for the first time while experiencing the benefits of Merits of Space III. Not only did I have to use hand-eye coordination to master flight, but it taught me to listen to others for instructions while navigating a drone obstacle course. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I could skillfully fly the drone through hoops without crashing it. Mission accomplished!

Later, I competed against a Cosmosphere employee in a Battlebots challenge! Using programmed robots made of Legos, we watched as one robot eventually pushed the other one outside of a boundary line. Although my robot’s design couldn’t withstand the strength of my competitor, it was entertaining and reinforced a lesson about creating a design that can tolerate challenges.

Consider registering your child in the Merits of Space III space camp, an opportunity they’ll never forget. Learn more and register here.

Merits of Space III: Campers program and operate robots to complete specific tasks. Image: Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS, cosmo.org

MISSION: ASTRO LAB (Entering 9-10 Grade, 6 Days, 5 Overnights)

Astro Recruits aim to establish life on another planet, but first, they must learn how to live in outer space successfully. Working as a team, they send crews to the Astro Lab, work with companies to make space accessible, and ensure working conditions in space. Astronauts must train for weightless, so Astro Recruits are introduced to SCUBA and complete high-altitude balloon experiments to prepare for their mission. Mission: Astro Lab is the ultimate camp experience, and it gives youth a chance to work on STEM and career skills at the same time.

While at the Cosmosphere, I sat in the Astralis spacecraft simulator while communicating with Mission Control to perform a launch. 3-2-1…go! As we waited for prompts from Mission Control and flipped switches, the virtual sky changed colors, and the stars appeared. Afterward, I climbed the ladder into the HAB, where I experimented using neon light to study the lifecycle of a star.

While listening to the Cosmosphere’s Mission Control, I docked the Astro Lab inside the Astralis spacecraft simulator. IMAGE: Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS, cosmo.org

I can’t emphasize enough how rewarding this experience is for participants. Campers who sign up for Mission: Astro Lab can run experiments and test their skill set, unlike anything they’ve done before. They also get to use virtual reality technology, a digital 3D mapping system, conduct medical flight tests like astronauts, and build communication and problem-solving skills on the Cosmosphere’s Low Ropes Course. Discover the possibilities and register here.

Astro Lab: Campers train for weightlessness with an introduction to SCUBA training. Image: Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS, cosmo.org

THE ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE

Aside from day camp educational opportunities, the Cosmosphere allows visitors of all ages to virtually travel through time and space. The Hall of Space Museum is divided into several galleries giving museum-goers a chance to learn more about the history of space travel on a self-guided tour.

The German Gallery details how Hitler’s Germany laid the groundwork for space travel. You can view V-1 and V2 rockets in the WWII exhibit. Visitors can also learn about the impact of high altitude and high-speed flight while walking around the X-Plane Gallery. Inside the Cold War Gallery, onlookers can discover how the U.S. and Soviet space programs competed to make significant strides during the Space Race.

The Cosmosphere makes learning about American heroes and Soviet secrets fascinating inside the Mollett Early Spaceflight Gallery. The actual Apollo 13 command module, Odyssey, is a major highlight of the Apollo Gallery. Visitors can also imagine life as an astronaut as they gaze upon approximately 100 artifacts in The Astronaut Experience.

Apollo 13, Odyssey. Image: Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS, cosmo.org

Ready for takeoff to the Cosmosphere? The best way to get the most out of your visit is to opt for the All-Access Mission Pass, which includes access to the Hall of Space Museum, CosmoKids, a movie viewing inside the Carey Digital Dome Theater, a show in the Justice Planetarium, a Dr. Goddard’s Lab experience, and one ride on the naviGATOR Simulator. Launch the ultimate museum experience here!

Do you have questions about the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas, or the youth camps? Add it below, and I’ll answer it for you! Visiting the Cosmosphere and participating in the interactive activities are out-of-this-world experiences you’ll never forget.

My mom is quite talented at a lot of things. When guests come over she rolls out the red carpet with the some of the most delicious meals. Even if you’ve dropped by the house mid-day, she’ll serve you a delicious cheese and fruit platter and pour you a glass of Chardonnay. Yea, she’s that kind of hostess.

But don’t be surprised if you knock on the door and she doesn’t answer. She’s most likely outside in her custom built garden house doing what she does best…gardening. Make no mistake. This is no She Shed. She refuses to let people label it as such. This is a real-deal garden house where she spends time cultivating her craft – making her gardens flourish. Whether she is sitting in the screened in porch chair reading about rose bushes or potting plants in the stainless steel sink, her green thumb is at work.

Located behind my parent’s home, mom’s garden house often entices strangers driving by to stop and ask to see it.

It seems only fair that my step-dad, who has his own woodworking shop, would build a garden house for her, right? The 8’x12′ house (not including the 5’x12′ screened in porch) includes the same amenities that any home would have including running water and electricity. During the winter it houses plants she wants to keep alive from the outdoor elements and during the summer the sun beams in on oversized house plants.

I recognize quite a bit of my mom’s style in her garden house’s design from the upcycled screen door to the ceiling light fixture that she held on to for years until this house was built.

Mom’s garden house is an extension of her own home. The interior’s neutral colors, off-set by the bright white counter tops and trimmed windows, includes various green hues from decorative additions and dark black metal pieces. Having collected many of the sitabouts over time, she decorates in a style more sophisticated than rustic farmhouse but less stuffy than classic traditional. She has an eclectic sense of design style that is uniquely her own.

Once inside the screened in porch, glass French doors remain welcome you into a spacious window lit space.

Muted green wicker chairs flank both sides of the screened in porch to the east and the west.

When not busy nurturing plants, she uses the garden house as a quiet refuge to read or just watch her many bird feeders in the yard over a glass of wine. When friends visit on occasion, like her Bunco gal pals, it serves as a getaway space to venture to between games for a quick tour. You can hear the women audibly dote over each detail of the garden house. They want one too. Who wouldn’t?

A serious gardner needs a space to pour over the details found in gardening books. Always the humble student, my mom enjoys learning why some plants and flowers flourish and how she can attract or eliminate insects.

Mom’s appreciation of nature goes back as far as I can remember.

“It (gardening) feeds my soul in a way nothing else does. I’m connected to plants in new says every year,” she said recently.

My childhood was spent watching her in the yard with her hands in the dirt on weekends. After coming home from school we would drag around the hose to water thick, layered flower beds of all colors and varieties. Sunflowers towered over our heads and wildflowers nestled at our feet. She would tell me about butterflies that she adored and the grasshoppers that broke her heart.

Today, she still sees beauty in the colors of delicate flowers and enjoys the harvest of a vegetable or herb garden. Her accepted challenge each year is to learn about the needs of plant placement in her landscape while always attempting to attract birds, bees, and insects.

Antique pottery and her favorite pieces adorn a shelf above the door inside the garden house.

The east side of the garden house exposes an area behind it where she also pots plants and flowers.

The wooden table on the right was her only potting station at our old house.

Gardening is not easy. She admits that the challenge is to find the balance between what she wants to plant and what nature will allow. Admittedly, she says there are more failures to learn every season and enough small successes to keep her happy.

I love spring and wish it lasted longer, she says.

It’s true. She smiles the most in the spring (with college basketball season in a close second place). When the weather begins to warm up and the days spring forward, she is more outdoors than she is indoors. I often call her to wish her a “Happy Spring” only for it to go to voicemail because she’s outside playing in the yard.

While I love the outdoors, I’m not a natural gardener. I struggle to keep plants alive. I either over or under water them. Completely forget about them. I never installed the proper drip system. Can a person’s “green thumb” be learned? Maybe I just wrote it off as “mom’s hobby.” I should have really paid more attention when helping her in the yard as a teen. Just last week I called her seeking advice about our sad rose bushes. Before I knew it, I was at her house on my hands and knees pruning her rose bushes while she used wood glue on the stem ends to prevent bores for invading them again. Glue? Who knew!

A rusty garden tool serves as a door knocker on the exterior of the garden house.

I’m “foodie” thanks to my mom’s love of cooking. In fact, many of her garden harvests end up in her recipes. Ripe tomatoes are the star ingredient in her homemade gazpacho, a cool treat during a blazing hot summer day. Fresh herbs like rosemary and thyme find their way into many of her savory recipes. This year she has decided to trade her tomato plants for perennials because it’s just less to have to worry about and each year perennials come back stronger when given the space to spread out.

I’ve have so much to learn from her wisdom about nature, about plants and birds. As I mentioned before, I’m at best a wannabe gardener. In fact, I’ve killed so many house plants over the years that if there is every going to be any hope for me, I’m going to have to spend more time with mom in the garden house. If you’re more like me, you’ll appreciate a post she helped me write last summer 10 Hard to Kill Houseplants You Can Leave While on Vacation.

But not every day can be spent gardening. Sometimes the body needs a day of rest between the hours spent digging in unforgiving soil and pulling weeds away from flowers. On these days, she takes time to let her body relax but we all know she is still thinking about her next outdoor project.

A water drip system was installed for her window boxes, which extends to the container pots near the garden house entrance.

What can we learn from mom’s garden house? Every woman, every person, needs a space to call their own. Where they can go to escape the chaos of the day and appreciate some quiet time or just enjoy their hobby.

What is it that brings you peace? What do you enjoy learning about most? Tell me in the comments section how you pursue your hobby or where you like to spend quiet time.

The Cosmosphere: An Out-of-this-World Experience

CAMPS

THE ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE

Garden House Showcase: A Special Place for Mom