Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center

The Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center (known as the McAuliffe Space Center or CMSEC), in Pleasant Grove, Utah, teaches school children about space and is visited by students from around the world. It has a number of flight simulators.



The center, named for educator Christa McAuliffe, was started in 1990 by Victor Williamson, an educator at Central Elementary School. It aimed to teach astronomy through the use of simulators; the first, Voyager, proved itself popular. As the years passed, the demand for flights expanded and new ships were commissioned. The simulators have included:

• TheVoyager (1990)
• The Odyssey (1995)
• The Galileo (original:1998 new:2009)
• The Magellan (Space Station) (1999) (Soon to be the USS Magellan by the end of Summer 2011)
• The Falcon (2000) (Decommissioned)
• The Phoenix (2005)
• The "Valiant" (2011) (opened at Thanksgiving Point with contribution from iWorlds program)
• The "Pathfinder" (Name in pending) (2012) (planned 8 person simulator due to the Space Center being removed from Alpine School District's bond for a new building)

The center, and its founder were honored in a ceremony in its 15th year by many individuals, including Gary Herbert, the Lieutenant Governor of Utah. At that time, with its five spaceship simulators, it was educating 16,000 students a year.

The center's mission...
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