McAuliffe Planetarium plans expansion

CONCORD, N.H. – The Christa McAuliffe Planetarium has plans to honor New Hampshire astronaut Alan Shepard with a $10 million expansion that would quadruple its size.

Gov. Jeanne Shaheen’s capital budget, released Thursday, proposes spending $3.3 million on the expansion. The planetarium’s directors hope to raise the rest of the money from federal and private sources.

The Alan B. Shepard Discovery Center would be attached to the existing planetarium on the New Hampshire Technical Institute campus.

The combined facility would be the largest science center in northern New England, according to the planetarium’s executive director.

“It’s a transformation of what we are, not just an addition,” Jeanne Gerulskis said.

As the 40th anniversary of Shepard’s May 5, 1961, space flight approaches, Gerulskis and the planetarium’s board are starting their fund-raising campaign.

Gerulskis has spoken with officials at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum about borrowing items related to McAuliffe and Shepard for the museum. Museum officials say they might lend some of the Derry native’s space suits and even a golf club.

Shepard, aside from being the first American in space, was the first to hit a golf ball on the moon.

McAuliffe was a Concord High School teacher who won a nationwide competition to become the first civilian in space. She was to teach classes while orbiting the Earth in the space shuttle Challenger.

She and Challenger’s six other crewmembers died in the nation’s worst space disaster on Jan. 28, 1988.

Besides honoring McAuliffe and Shepard, the new center would educate children and adults about space and space travel, and tell the stories of other astronauts with New Hampshire connections.

They include Rick Searfoss, a Portsmouth High School graduate who has been on three shuttle missions and commanded one in 1998; Richard Linnehan, who grew up in Pelham and flew on the shuttle in 1996 and 1998; Dr. Jay Buckey, a Dartmouth College neurology professor who was on a 1990 shuttle flight; and Tom Henricks, a former state resident who commanded two shuttle missions and piloted two others.

The new wing also would have displays about New Hampshire companies that supply parts and services to the space program. They include Teradyne, Teledyne, Chemfab, Cabletron Systems, Warwick Mills and BAE Systems.

The proposed 34,000-square-foot expansion would include two floors of exhibits, a central atrium where satellites and rockets could be displayed, a telescope, a theater, office space, a cafe and research rooms. The project includes space outside for a “rocket garden” where rockets could be displayed.

Gerulskis said no decision has been made about what to call the expanded facility, which was designed by Dignard Architectural Services of New Boston.

The planetarium, now about 11,000 square feet, features a 92-seat, 40-foot high dome where shows about stars and space are presented. The theater is surrounded on two sides by a narrow space that includes exhibits on robotics, astronomy, space flight and solar power.

But the space won’t hold enough exhibits to occupy people while they wait for planetarium shows to begin, Gerulskis said. There also is no office space.

“This was designed for three staffers. We now have 23,” she said.