Mission 1503

Mission 1503: A New Hope The evacuated Space Station Alpha orbited under the control of HAL. The theme of the 15th annual Columbia Aeronautics and Space Association was "a New Hope"; hope for the mission, hope for the astronauts and hope for the station. The success of this mission depended on the keen resourcefulness of the CASA student astronauts and once again they achieved their overall goals for the mission. Over two hundred students from around the Columbia Public School District participated in the 15th annual CASA mission. CASA also welcomed esteemed members of our community: Columbia mayor, Darwin Hindman; state representatives Vicky Riback-Wilson and Chuck Graham; and Donna Spickert, representative of Senator Jim Talent.

The CASA mission this year was remarkably different from past missions. This year CASA students served as student directors and each day one of the esteemed CASA students manned the controls as head mission director. Each student director created and utilized their own simulated on board emergencies, or SOBE's, and created his or her own plan for their day in charge of the mission. Mission directors included Andy Maerz, Hossien Oveys, CJ Hardnock, Sherman Chancellor, David Soucie and Donny Tennyson. This new aspect of the mission brought an exciting new element to the annual CASA simulation.

Lift-off for Mission 1503 took place on Monday, February 24, 2003. The initial lift-off carried only one passenger; Officer Evan Gentzler was the first on the space station. Officer Gentzler's orders were to ensure Space Station Alpha's safety for the impending habitation. After a thorough check of all the systems, the safety of the space station was confirmed and the remaining CASA student astronauts joined Officer Gentzler on space station Alpha.

Each day of the mission was marked with a separate but equal challenge put forth by the student mission directors. Challenges included satellites, solar flares, telemetry errors, loss of power on the station, and the final challenge of the mission, a last minute life and death decision. After HAL issued a self-destruct command for Space Station Alpha, Astronaut David Soucie had to make a last minute decision on whether to cease communication with HAL and risk killing everyone on board the station or to evacuate space station Alpha and let it explode. As Astronaut Soucie cut the decisive wire, all audio and video communication with Space Station Alpha was lost.

Overall, Mission 1503 was a great success. CASA would once again like to thank: the CASA Mentors; our special guests; the teachers and administrators at Hickman High School; and the citizens of Columbia for their interest and support in the CASA program. We look forward to next February when the suspense of the fate of the astronauts will be unveiled.