For those of us who grew up in the 1960’s, going to the moon was a childhood obsession.  Making astronaut costumes and pretending to walk through the antigravity field mimicked what was happening in the news and, as we witnessed the Moon Landing in 1969, it seemed anything was possible.

 

Fast forward to 2015 and picture Bridgeport’s own Trina Britcher donning her own astronaut uniform and traveling to space with people from all over the world.  It happened last month as she attended SPACE CAMP at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, NASA’s Official Visitor Information Center for Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. 

 

For 20 years, Britcher has taken students with blindness and visual impairments to the Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students (SCIVIS).  The program started 26 years ago when Ed Buckbee, founder of Space Camp, contacted the West Virginia School for the Blind to encourage them to bring students to the camp and find out how to adapt the program.  Harrison County has had the longest and most public school participation in the program to date.

 

“Space amp may be a program for developing math and science skills, which it does,” says  Britcher, “but for my students, it is also a tremendous confidence  booster.” About 200 blind and visually impaired students attend the program from around the world each year.

 

“About five years ago, with the help of my braille specialist Connie Baker, I began doing all the braille necessary for SCIVIS as well as coordinating the educational materials production for the program,” said Britcher.  “The missing link was that I had never completed a space camp mission or been a participant.  After winning the Braille Challenge Teacher of the Year in 2011, they invited me to participate in the International Teacher of the Year Camp.  This summer I decided to take them up on their offer.”

 

Encouraged by former students who had attended, Britcher traveled to Alabama to attend the camp.  She met people from all over the world, including Greece and Ecuador. Each teacher brought something to represent their state, country or specialty and Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger and Don Thomas treated the group to presentations.  “They made traveling to the moon and beyond sound as reasonable as traveling across the country,” said Britcher.

 

“Native West Virginians Homer Hickam and Ed Buckbee shared stories of astronauts, rockets and early space programs and brought all those American heroes to life for us,” said Britcher.  The group participated in STEM activities that they could bring back to use in their own classrooms and they had the opportunity to use a 1/6^th gravity simulator to see what it was like on the moon.  They also were able to use the Multi-Axis Trainer, which simulated re-entry into orbit.

 

As for Britcher, she served in Mission Control on both missions and successfully helped to complete the missions and land safely. The experience was truly out of this world and gave her a whole new perspective to bring back to Harrison County.  “The week was full of learning new things and meeting amazing people,” said Britcher, adding, “those are two of my favorite things in life.”