You will Fly a Space Ship at the Public Museum

This will be one of the coolest exhibits ever to hit the Grand Rapids Public Museum. The Museum (GRPM) announced today tickets are now on sale for the newest traveling exhibit, "Be the Astronaut," opening June 16. Everyone will experience what it is like to be an astronaut including the challenges and excitement of spaceflight!

How exciting will this be as you take command of futuristic space vehicles, chart their course to the Moon, Mars and beyond and land and explore highly detailed digital re-creations of actual places in the solar system built using data from NASA space probes.

Be the Astronaut teaches STEM based content via a fusion of the physical exhibit with state-of-the-art video game technology. Visitors have their own crew of virtual experts throughout every stage of the exhibit.

Tickets are now on sale for Be the Astronaut, and can be purchased by visiting grpm.org/Astronaut or by calling the Museum’s front desk at 616.929.1700.

Admission to Be the Astronaut is $12 for adults, $7 for children, $9 for Kent County resident adults, $4 for Kent County resident children, and $2 for all Museum members! Tickets include general admission to the Museum.

In each space capsule, a monitor serves as the ‘windshield,’ giving visitors a first-person view of their adventures. Touch-screens and an industrial-quality joystick put visitors in command.

During missions, the entire cockpit comes alive with animated lighting effects, game visuals, and sounds that make visitors believe they are astronauts. Special companion robots will move about the hall and interact with visitors..

This exhibit will run from June 16 through September 16, 2018.