All systems are go for Aerospacefest at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. With special guests, and fun science and engineering activities for children and families, the Discovery Center’s annual aerospace festival is sure to have something for everyone.
Aerospacefest will include a premiere of the planetarium show, The Little Star that Could, main stage presentations by Mad Science, Things with Wings and NASA astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams, who ran the Boston Marathon on a treadmill at the International Space Station, 210 miles above the Earth, nine years ago. There will be robots, rockets and aviation simulators; stations with STEM activities by the New England Air Museum, Raytheon, Squam Lakes Science Center, Seacoast Science Center, Aviation Museum of N.H., Plymouth State University’s Meteorology Team, N.H. Aviation Bureau and more.
The 2016 winners of the Alex Higgins Memorial Space Camp Scholarship awards will be announced at Aerospacefest. The lucky New Hampshire students chosen for simulated astronaut training at the U.S. Space & Rocketry Center in Huntsville, Ala. will be the 48th, 49th and 50th winners since the Higgins family and the Discovery Center joined hands to initiate this program back in 2001.
The Discovery Center’s long-term Aerospacefest partner, the N.H. Astronomical Society, will be on hand with telescopes and advice about searching the heavens for some of the most delightful objects to be found in the Milky Way and beyond. Thanks to support from N.H. Space Grant, N.H. Charitable Foundation and the Discovery Center’s members and donors, the all-inclusive admission cost for the day is $15 for adults, $13 for students and seniors, $10 for children and free for members and children under 3.
For more information, visit starhop.com.
Jeanne Gerulskis
