United States Astronaut Hall of Fame

Titusville, Florida: Adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center sits the US Astronaut Hall of Fame. The museum features a collection of personal items from the space program as well as equipment, interactive exhibits and simulators, and the Hall of Fame itself. Two of the more popular artifacts on display are he Mercury Sigma 7 spacecraft and a space suit worn by Gus Grissom on board Mercury 4.

The Hall of Fame was created by a vision of the surviving astronauts of Mercury Seven. They wanted a place for past astronauts to be honored and the resulting hall of fame opened in 1990 and was run by the US Space Camp Foundation in conjunction with the Space Camp Florida.

The Hall of Fame remained opened until 2002 when it was forced to close to low attendance. The museum was auctioned off through foreclosure and was purchased by Delaware North Services, the operators of the visitor complex at Kennedy Space Center. It was added as part of the visitor complex attraction and reopened to the public in December 2002.

The Hall of Fame boasts the largest collection of personal items from astronauts in the world. Many of items from space life are on display. The exhibits include items from all eras of American space flight from the early program through the space shuttle. There is also interactive experiences to allow guests to simulate different facets of space travel include a G-Force simulator, landing simulator and motion simulator.

Finally the cornerstone of the attraction is the Hall of Fame itself. The current hall of fame consists of 74 members with new members inducted every May. The first class inducted were the Mercury 7 astronauts and a new class has been inducted every year since its inception with exception of 2001.

For more photos from the museum, click the photo above or visit my US Astronaut Hall of Fame photo gallery.