BANGOR – Plans for a $2 million space science education center received a warm reception Monday night from a City Council committee that backed a proposal to help fund the project to the tune of $250,000.

The council’s Strategic Issues Committee, in a 5-2 vote, decided to send the funding plan to the full council, which is scheduled to consider the matter at its Sept. 10 meeting.

The proposed center would be located at Portland Hall, the former Dow Air Force Base movie theater on the campus of University College Bangor. The council would also donate the building as part of the funding proposal.

Monday’s vote came after the latest in a series of presentations by the Challenger Center for Space Science Education of Maine, officials from which had asked the council to contribute $400,000 in addition to the building.

City Councilor Joe Baldacci pushed Monday for fully funding the request, which he called an important project for the region that has seen an exodus of young people in the past decade.

“This is important for drawing young people here and educating them … and positioning Bangor a hub for learning,” said Baldacci, who suggested the city take $200,000 out of surplus and borrow the rest.

The center would include a space laboratory and a replica of NASA’s mission-control room, in which middle school students would conduct a variety of simulated missions to boost achievement in math and science education.

Local board members predict the center will draw 9,000 students to the city each year.

The Bangor organizers said they looked to begin raising the as early as September, and hoped to the open the center in the fall of 2002. With the council contribution, the board would need to raise another $1.25 million to build the center, which would be the 40th in the world.

In June, the national board of directors of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in Alexandria, Va., unanimously approved the Bangor application.

The national organization, which oversees 39 Challenger Learning centers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, was formed by the families of the seven crew members who died when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff in January 1986.

Although the council committee unanimously backed the space center’s mission, opinions varied on how much city taxpayers should chip in.

While members agreed that the city should donate Portland Hall, a dilapidated theater currently owned by the University of Maine System but set to be turned over to the city, the committee had different figures in mind when it came to cash contributions.

City Councilors Gerry Palmer and Judy Vardamis backed Baldacci’s funding plan, which would also allow Bangor students to use the center for a reduced fee.

“I want my spaghetti with meat sauce,” Palmer said of his support $400,000 grant rather than lesser amounts suggested by others on the committee.

Committee members compromised on the $250,000 figure after several councilors – including Mayor John Rohman – said they couldn’t support borrowing the money to fund the project.

“I might feel better about giving more if I didn’t see so many people grabbing after it,” Rohman said of the projected $1.1 million fund balance. “We have some other projects coming and at some point were going to run out.”

If the Challenger funding is approved by the council, it would not be the first time in recent history the city has contributed to a non-profit project. In the past few years, the council has donated $1.25 million to the Maine Discovery Museum and the $400,000 to the University of Maine Museum of Art.