Moonbuggy Team Italy, Highschool 2012
Daniele Cini, Marco De Lorenzi, Simon Galletti. Giacomo Labbri, Laura Martin
International Space Education Institute
Hunstville, 04.04.2012

 
Today was our first day in Huntsville. At 9.30 we went with the guys of the russian and German team to the garage where the pieces of four moonbuggys are stowed and, when we got there, Ralf explained to us the timetable of the days to come:

8.00 breakfast
9.15 sightseeing of Huntsville
11.00 arrival in the garage, briefing
11.00-19.00 work on the Moonbuggys and on the reports
19.00 dinner and debriefing
20.00 report delivery

He told us the special activities of the next days; in particular, on Easter-Sunday and Monday, a visit to Cape Canaveral in Florida and to the Kennedy Space Center is programmed.

After that we went to the center of Huntsville for a first look of the city: first we visited the cyclism local shop, “Trailhead Bicycles”, which will give us pieces if needed; then we reached Huntsville’s central park, where the Wehrner von Braun Memorial Institute is located, in memory of the German engineer that, amongst the others, is remembered for the special contribution to the Apollo 11 mission, that brought man to the moon.
The park is spacious and in the sun and, after a walk around the artificial lake, we went back to the garage.

Here began our real work: some of us assembled the back seat that we brought from Venice and, once finished, with the help of Roman and Evgenij, the two Russian engineers, we started to put together the pieces of the principle axle of the Moonbuggy; the others prepared an Italian video presentation of the garage, its rooms and their functions. 

At half past three we all went to Huntsville’s downtown to the house of Mr. Thomas, the owner of the garage and other establishments in town, who previously invited us for a barbecue; after a swim in the pool the weather started to get worst, so we went inside, where we had a wonderful supper prepared by Thomas’s wife, Laura, and by all of us.

After about two hours, we left, with the invitation to go back whenever we like to visit this very hospital family, and went to visit another house pretty close by, in which lives Mr. Terry, that generously lent us some tools, that we will use for the construction of the Moonbuggy. Mr. Terry showed us his house and his garage, that contained sport cars that he himself modified.