Space Center Houston
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| Slogan | The Official Visitor Center of the Johnson Space Center |
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| Location | Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 29°33′07″N 95°05′54″W / 29.5518812°N 95.0983429°WCoordinates: 29°33′07″N 95°05′54″W / 29.5518812°N 95.0983429°W |
| Owner | NASA |
| Operated by | Manned Spaceflight Educational Foundation Incorporated |
| Opened | October 16, 1992[1] |
| Operating season | open year-round |
| Visitors per annum | 715,934 (2008)[2] |
| Website | spacecenter.org/ |
Space Center Houston is the official visitor center of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) center for human spaceflight activities—located in Houston, Texas. The facility is operated by the nonprofit Manned Spaceflight Educational Foundation Incorporated with design input from Walt Disney Imagineering.[3]
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Space hardware [edit]
Space Center Houston is home to space artifacts and hardware including:
Mercury 9 capsule (Faith 7)
Gemini 5 capsule
Apollo 17 command module
Lunar Rover Vehicle trainer
Skylab trainer mock-up
Lunar Module Test Article 8
Saturn V
These artifacts (except Skylab) were formerly housed in the Johnson Space Center's former Visitor Center in Building 2.
A restored Saturn V, on loan from the Smithsonian, is on display after it sat exposed to outdoor elements from 1977 through 2004, leading to exterior weather damage and plants, molds, and small animals inside the stages. In 2004 the Smithsonian took over and began efforts to restore the vehicle through a grant from the National Park Service's Save America's Treasures program and the National Trust for Historic Preservation along with private contributions[4]
The Space Center will soon be the new home of the space shuttle Explorer mockup, after the shuttle transfers are completed. Explorer was previously located at the Kennedy Space Center, but is being moved to make way for a new permanent attraction hall for Atlantis.
Attractions [edit]
- Martian Matrix/Kid's Space Place, a play place for children 5th grade and younger
- Northrop Grumman Theater, a large format theater that shows the movies To Be An Astronaut and Inside the Space Station
- A tram tour of JSC, which goes to Building 30 North and South (old and new Mission Control Centers), Building 9 (the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility), and a Rocket Park, including a restored Saturn V. It is made up of first stage from SA-514, the second stage from SA-515 and the third stage from SA-513, which was unneeded after it was replaced by the Skylab workshop.
- Special tours, called Level 9 tours, given at an extra cost, visit all of the above buildings and other areas such as the Neutral Buoyancy Lab.
- The lectern from which President John F. Kennedy repeated his goal of a manned Moon landing before 1970 at Rice Stadium is located inside the Destiny Theater.
- Destiny Theater, which shows a short historical film.
- Starship Gallery houses space related artifacts, including Moon rocks, space capsules, and a full-scale Skylab mockup.
References [edit]
- ^ Space Center Houston press site
- ^ "Space Center Houston response to SSP RFI". Manned Space Flight Education Foundation, Inc.
- ^ "MSEFI History". Manned Spaceflight Educational Foundation Incorporated.
- ^ "Restoration Begins on Saturn V at JSC". NASA.
External links [edit]
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