![]() ![]() There’s also an option to add a bus tour (currently unavailable) to the Marshall Space Flight Center, however, this tour is only available to U.S. Tickets were easy to purchase on-site, and several different attraction tiers are available depending on what you’d like to see. Our visit fell on a Sunday, but the Thursday evening Stein & Dine Biergarten is apparently hugely popular. – 5 p.m., although there are occasional events in the evening. They are open all but four days of the year from 9 a.m. We drove having access to a vehicle was a huge benefit to visiting the area and getting to the Space and Rocket Center. Huntsville International Airport (HSV) has direct flight service to Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Orlando, and Washington, D.C. Space and Rocket Center is located just west of central Huntsville, Alabama, which features its own airport. I hope we’ll be able to return one weekend for Adult Space Academy! But just because I grew up, it doesn’t mean that my dreams are shattered. Let me tell you, attending Space Camp was my absolute dream as a kid, but my family just could never make it work. If rides are your thing, you may want to keep the weather in mind. With a long line of kids, we skipped the indoor offerings, and unfortunately due to cold and wet weather the outdoor ones weren’t running. Space and Rocket Center that isn’t available in Cape Canaveral is the plentiful rides. We skipped the add-on, but some of the shows on the calendar sound stellar ( Cocktails and Cosmos? Count me in!). Tickets for attending a show at the INTUITIVEPlanetarium are available separately or as part of a combo pass. We passed on eating here after experiencing the not-so-great food at the Kennedy Space Center, but the prices and options aligned with my expectations. There is a ton of information presented here with a time crunch we had to skip over huge segments, but plan to spend a couple of hours here if you can. The building is similarly huge with lots of information, displays, and interactive exhibits along the outer walls. It is, as you might expect, massive and kept lit at night for viewing from the interstate. The Saturn V test rocket is a National Historic Site and is identical to the ones used to send man to the moon. ![]() There are videos throughout and hands-on opportunities to experience what life is like in space (but thankfully the toilets are hands-off!). Although it’s relatively small, it’s crammed full of information. The Space Station exhibit was one of my favorites of the day. With a few interactive features and a moon rock that’s free to touch (spoiler alert: it feels like a regular rock), kids won’t grow bored walking through this exhibit. With a focus not just on space travel and the goal to put man on the moon, this exhibit also offered a look at the tumultuous 1960s, including civil rights artifacts and information about the assassination of JFK. ![]() The current featured exhibit, titled Apollo: When we went to the Moon (running through December 2019), offered a fascinating, wide-lens look at the Space Race. Many of the items featured are ones we use on a daily basis, such as an orange juicer and Wikipedia: Huntsville boomed into a tech hub when NASA came to town in the middle of the last century. The first exhibit featured inventions that were created and patented locally. The wait to purchase tickets ($25 each, though there are more expensive options with additional features) was short, and soon we were saying “no thank you” to a green screen photo and entering the exhibits: Alabama Inventions Though it was a gloomy day outside, you’d never know it from the bright, cheery inside. We knew we were in the right place well before we arrived because the rockets and space shuttles outside are visible from the interstate. Needless to say, there’s enough here to fill a full day! And although we could only spare half a day to visit, we still managed to cover a lot of ground. ![]() Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama – even after a fairly recent trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.Īs NASA’s official visitor’s center for the Marshall Space Flight Center, the Space and Rocket Center first opened in 1970, expanding to now house a Saturn V Rocket, planetarium, multiple exhibits, and two on-site camp programs. After visiting Unclaimed Baggage in nearby Scottsboro, it would have been an utter shame to skip over the U.S. ![]()
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