Buildings
Huntsville architect David Crowe designed the initial building with 22,000 square feet (2,000 m2) of exhibit space. An Omnimax (now called IMAX Dome) theater was installed prior to February 28, 1984. The movie SpaceCamp preceded droves more campers (5,000 in 1986 to 11,000 in 1987), for whom facilities were expanded again.
Since 1969, 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.
A $3 million NASA Educator Resource Center was built during Larry Capps's tenure.
The newest addition to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center is the Davidson Center for Space Exploration, named after Dr. Julian Davidson, founder of Davidson Technologies. The 68,000 square feet (6,300 m2) building opened January 31, 2008. The Davidson Center was designed to house the Saturn V Dynamic Test Vehicle (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 3D movie theater in addition to the IMAX theater in the original museum.
When the Davidson Center opened in 2008, the museum's ticket center and entrance was relocated to the Davidson Center, so it is now the first exhibit museum visitors experience. This, however, necessitated that visitors enter the original museum through the rear doors, causing it to be viewed out of its original sequence.
Read more about this topic: U.S. Space & Rocket Center
Famous quotes containing the word buildings:
“If the factory people outside the colleges live under the discipline of narrow means, the people inside live under almost every other kind of discipline except that of narrow means—from the fruity austerities of learning, through the iron rations of English gentlemanhood, down to the modest disadvantages of occupying cold stone buildings without central heating and having to cross two or three quadrangles to take a bath.”
—Margaret Halsey (b. 1910)