page_title: U.S. Space & Rocket Center
section_title: Buildings
hierarchical_section_title: U.S. Space & Rocket Center / Buildings
caption_attribution_description: One of two Saturn V launch vehicles on display at the U.S. Space &amp; Rocket Center, this test article, en:SA-500D hangs in the main hall of the Davidson Center for Space Exploration. For scale, there is a person standing at the far right just outside the building and beneath the SLA.Photo taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 in Huntsville, AL, USA.
context_page_description: The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama is a museum operated by the government of Alabama, showcasing rockets, achievements, and artifacts of the U.S. space program. Sometimes billed as "Earth's largest space museum", astronaut Owen Garriott described the place as, "a great way to learn about space in a town that has embraced the space program from the very beginning."
  The center opened in 1970, just after the Apollo 12 Moon landing, the second crewed mission to the lunar surface. It showcases Apollo Program hardware and also houses interactive science exhibits, Space Shuttle exhibits, and Army rocketry and aircraft. With more than 1,500 permanent rocketry and space exploration artifacts, as well as many rotating rocketry and space-related exhibits, the center occupies land carved out of Redstone Arsenal adjacent to Huntsville Botanical Garden at exit 15 on Interstate 565. The center offers bus tours of nearby NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
  Two camp programs offer visitors the opportunity to stay on the grounds to learn more about spaceflight and aviation. U.S.
context_section_description: Huntsville architect David Crowe designed the initial building with 22,000 square feet (2,000 m²) of exhibit space.
  Since 1969, Huntsville residents could point to the vertical 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.
  Since 1979, a surplus Saturn IB rocket example owned by the museum stands at the Alabama Welcome Center in Ardmore "as a reminder to visitors of Alabama's role in the space program."
  The dome theater addition opened December 19, 1982, to be replaced by a planetarium after a 36-year run.
  The 1986 film SpaceCamp promoted the camp and inspired more than a doubling of camp attendees (from 5,000 in 1986 to 11,000 in 1987), and the facilities had to be expanded again.
  A $3 million NASA Educator Resource Center was built during Larry Capps's tenure, opening mid-2005.
  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 planetarium 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.
caption: The SA-500D Saturn V is the centerpiece in the main hall of the Davidson Center for Space Exploration.
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