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| US Space & Rocket Center | |
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| Established | 1970 |
| Location | Huntsville, AL |
| Type | Science museum |
| Director | Larry Capps |
| Curator | Irene Willhite |
| Website | www.spacecamp.com/museum/ |
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center is located in Huntsville, Alabama. The Center includes a museum designed to showcase the hardware of the U.S. space program and the facilities of the United States Space Camp.
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Background
The idea for the museum was first proposed by Dr. Wernher von Braun, who led the efforts of the United States to land the first man on the moon. The center opened in 1970 as the Alabama Space and Rocket Center on land donated from the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal.[1] It houses interactive science exhibits, more than 1,500 permanent rocketry and space exploration artifacts, as well as many rotating rocketry and space-related exhibits. The center is located on Interstate 565 at exit 15, near NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Exhibits
- Original Saturn V rocket test vehicle – fully restored
- Saturn I rocket
- Fragment of the Skylab space station, after its reentry on July 11, 1979.
- Pathfinder orbiter mock-up
- Apollo 16 command module "Casper"
- Centaur G-Prime upper stage
- A-12 Oxcart "Blackbird" spy plane (incorrectly called an SR-71 in promotional literature)
- Space Shot simulator
- G-Force Accelerator simulator
- Mars Rover simulator
- IMAX Theatre - the "Spacedome"
- 3D Movie Theatre
- Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination (Beginning in June, 2010)
Saturn V mock-up
For years, Huntsville residents could point to the Saturn I rocket at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center as a distant landmark (located a few miles from the city center). In 1999, a full-scale model of the Saturn V rocket was erected, standing nearly twice as tall as the Saturn I.
Davidson Center for Space Exploration
The newest addition to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center is the Davidson Center for Space Exploration, opened January 31, 2008. The Davidson Center was designed to house the authentic Saturn V rocket (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) and many other space exploration exhibits. The vehicle is elevated above the floor surface with separated stages and engines exposed, so visitors have the opportunity to walk underneath the rocket. The Davidson Center also features a new 3D movie theater, in addition to the IMAX Theater in the original museum.
In 2008, Good Morning America named the Saturn V one of the Seven Wonders of America (ranked 5th), and televised a segment honoring the Saturn V from the Davidson Center.[2]
Space Camp
The U.S. Space Camp is located on the grounds of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The camp provides residential and day camp educational programs for children in various age groups and adults. These programs include space oriented camp programs, aircraft themed Aviation Challenge camps, and outdoor oriented X-Camp programs.
The U.S. Space and Rocket Center was featured on Little People Big World episode "Space Jake" in which Jacob Roloff attended Space Camp in the Summer of 2008.
Other
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Other articles on-site but not visible by the general public:
- Full-scale Skylab training mock-up (one of three built)[3]
- Located in Aviation Challenge compound:
- F-14 Tomcat (Tomcat # 2 in Top Gun)
- F-16 Fighting Falcon
- F-4 Phantom II (one MiG kill in Operation Bolo)
- YF-111
- A-7 Corsair II
- AH-1 Cobra
- UH-1 Iroquois
- NASA AV-8B Harrier
- MiG-15
- T-38
- Numerous other articles of aviation related military hardware.
The Center is also the resting place of Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey who flew on a suborbital test flight of the PGM-19 Jupiter rocket on May 28, 1959. Baker lived in a facility at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center for many years until she died of kidney failure on November 20, 1984.
References
- ^ In the Beginning: US Space & Rocket Center
- ^ Good Morning America, 7 Wonders of America, ABC
- ^ Skylab Training Mock-up
External links
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Coordinates: 34°42′41″N 86°39′15″W / 34.71139°N 86.65417°W
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