Everything’s black. The crew is dead.

Time to go back to school.

Not quite a typical field trip. It is, however, a typical space mission at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center, at Central Elementary in Pleasant Grove, where more than 14,500 Utah County school children come on field trips every year.

The center celebrated its 15th anniversary Monday night. The center is dedicated to giving children an experience they will remember.

“The best part of all thisfi Seeing the kids get really excited about learning and get excited about space,” said center founder Victor William.

William started the simulation center by having his sixth-graders huddle their desks together and pretend to fly to Mars. It was for the space unit, and he didn’t want to lecture.

That was in 1990. The kids liked it so much that Williams started a club after school where they could do it more. He applied for grants to build a simulator. They were approved, along with a yearlong sabbatical from Qwest — then US West — that allowed him to develop the simulators.

Now, 15 years later, there are five simulator spaceships. Williams runs camps in the summer months where 1,500 children spend the night at the school in the space ship.

Once one has entered into the black transporter tube and walked into the white walls of the ship, the red brick and tiled floor of the school is forgotten. It is a simulator that allows even adults to play.

Dave Daymont is a computer technologist for Alpine School District. He is a flight director for the Space Center as a way to play.

“It’s like you’re doing a live television show, in many ways. Only the crew doesn’t know what’s going to happen next.”

Last year students flew to an enslaved world, learning about the Civil War and slavery.

“That way, you’re able to teach the kids a very valuable lesson, but in a sci-fi world, they might see it a little differently,” Daymont said.

The flight directors are one of the few paid positions. Over 160 volunteers — including former students — run the space flights. Williams teaches them how to write the computer programs, and they create the experience.

“We pose as characters from the Star Trek Universe,” volunteer Warren Nuila, 14, of Provo said. “We interact with kids. It’s fun to keep the story going.”

Nuila would like to write or direct science fiction someday.

The space center occupies several transformed classrooms in the school. All five spaceships were built through donations or grants. The program itself is funded through field trip payments from the schools and private payments made from the after school and summer programs.

“The real goal isn’t to create astronauts,” William said. “The real goal is to get kids excited about space.”

William said that if he could teach children to support the space program and support federal space funding, he would be satisfied.

But, he just might be raising some astronauts, too.

“This kind of makes me want to be an astronaut, or an engineer,” Meg Rodeback, 12, of American Fork, said in a spaceship where she’d completed several missions.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1.