BANGOR – To inspire Maine students to study math and science, a group of local educators and businesspeople has gotten the go-ahead to establish a Challenger Learning Center for space science education here.

At the center, which organizers hope to open in the fall of 2002 if fund raising is successful, middle-school pupils would perform experiments and participate in simulations based on space exploration that are integrated with classroom education.

Tentative plans for the Challenger Learning Center of Maine have it housed in Portland Hall, the former movie theater at Dow Air Force Base on land that is now on the University College of Bangor campus.

The center would include a space laboratory and a replica of NASA’s mission-control room. Students would conduct a variety of simulated missions. The idea is for them to put math and science education to practical use, said Bill Buckley, the Bangor businessman who is president of the local nonprofit corporation formed to set up the center.

The board of directors of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in Alexandria, Va., which oversees a national network of learning centers numbering more than three dozen, unanimously approved the Bangor application Friday.

The national organization was formed in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster in January 1986 by families of the seven crew members who died when the shuttle exploded shortly after liftoff. The families wanted to create a positive legacy that would carry the mission’s purpose into the future.

There are already 39 Challenger Learning Centers in the United States, two in Canada, and one in the United Kingdom. The closest one to Bangor is in Framingham, Mass.

The object of the Bangor center, according to the application to the national board of directors, is “to provide a challenging, interdisciplinary, relevant educational experience for the children of Maine … to help raise student aspirations, to improve educational achievement in mathematics and the sciences, and to foster interest in space-related careers.”

“This is not a recreational thing. This is truly an educational program,” said Richard Cattelle, a real estate developer in Bangor and a member of the local board of directors. He is a former flight and mission controller with McDonnell Douglas who worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston during the Apollo and Skylab programs,

Howard Wahlberg, vice president of marketing and network development for the national Challenger group, said, “We look at the impact on education and schools in the community. We work with each community to maximize the impact.” It will not be a museum.

Another of the local organizers, Robert “Sandy” Ervin, Bangor’s school superintendent, said, “It adds a dimension of hands-on learning in science and math that we don’t have at this time. The intense problem solving experience will cement an understanding about space and science because, students will be both on a mission and running a mission.”

The organizers hope to draw students from within a three-hour drive of Bangor, including students from northern New Hampshire and western New Brunswick. Buckley said that he would be thrilled if the center drew 7,500 to 9,000 students the first year, and 8,500 to 10,000 thereafter.

On average, Challenger Learning Centers attract 10,000 students a year, according to Wahlberg. And drawing from schools within a two-hour drive is not atypical.

The center would employ seven people, five of them educators.

Buckley said the project would cost $1.1 million to $2 million, depending on whether the city of Bangor is willing to refurbish Portland Hall and turn it over to the group.

The organizers hope to raise at least $1.1 million through a fund drive. That amount would cover the $750,000 cost of the mission-control and space-lab simulators, provide $250,000 for the first year’s operating expenses and $100,000 for other equipment.

The projected cost of purchasing or renovating a building ranges from $400,000 to $1 million.

The Maine Space Grant Consortium, which coordinates grants and provides funding for space-related projects, has already pledged $10,000 in seed money.

Each day the center would run two space mission “scenarios,” one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

It would handle 25 to 35 students at a time. Half would be assigned to mission control and the other half to the space lab. The students also would be assigned to one of eight specialty teams: medical, life support, isolation, remote, probe, navigation, communications, and data.

They would conduct missions based on one of four scenarios: a manned mission to the moon; a manned mission to Mars; deploying a weather satellite; or launching a probe to study a passing comet. Each scenario lasts for about 21/2 hours, with the teams switching roles halfway through.

In preparation, students work for weeks on materials provided by the Challenger Learning Center. The educational content of each mission simulation is structured to support the science standards developed by the National Research Council.

After visiting the center, students analyze data gathered during the mission, and reflect on its successes and failures.

The Bangor organizers are looking at charging schools $600 per scenario. This includes teacher training and the pre- and post-scenario classroom materials.

Currently, the closest Challenger Learning Center is within the Christa Corrigan McAuliffe Center for Education and Teaching Excellence at Framingham State College in Massachusetts.

McAuliffe, the social studies teacher who was a member of the Challenger crew, was a Framingham native who earned her undergraduate degree at the college.

Ray Griffin, the center’s director, said that on average, 13,000 students participate in the space simulations each year.

The center has drawn students from as far west as the Connecticut River valley, as far east as the coast, and as far north as Gray, Maine. But the vast majority of students come from Massachusetts, in part, because the Challenger curriculum is “perfectly aligned with Massachusetts’ curriculum frameworks,” Griffin explained.

In their application to the national group, the Bangor organizers showed how the center’s educational activities mesh with Maine’s academic standards, the Learning Results.

Whether the Bangor center will be located in Portland Hall is still unsettled. City and university officials have been meeting regularly to discuss land swaps. Federal encumbrances on the former air base land expired on May 10.

Russ Smith, chief financial officer for the university system, said that a tentative agreement is being drafted that includes turning over Portland Hall to the city.

“The University of Maine System is more than happy to turn the building over to [the city],” according to Smith.

The city is both “interested in and supportive of” locating the Challenger Learning Center in Portland Hall, according to Ed Barrett, Bangor’s city manager.

However, Portland Hall is in “pretty rough shape” with water leaking in through the roof, he said.

The Challenger Learning Center group has asked the city for $400,000 to refurbish it, he added, a request that the City Council is still considering.