The Apollo Center in Webster, Texas, would serve as a tribute to NASA's moon landings and feature as its centerpiece an 80-foot-tall (24m) statue of a spacesuited astronaut. (The Apollo Center)
.
A new Texas-size tribute to NASA's Apollo manned moon landings may give new meaning to the phrase "giant leap."
An 80-foot-tall (24-m) statue of a spacesuited astronaut is planned as the centerpiece for the Apollo Center, a newly-announced visitor attraction in Webster, Texas. Proposed as a 20,000 square-foot (1,860 sq.m) facility located just down the road from NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, the Apollo Center would serve as an education and conference center.
The "venue [will] serve not only as a tribute to the Apollo program... but also as a window into the future of space exploration, space habitation, and space technology," the non-profit behind the new center described in a brochure.
The Apollo Center's organizers briefed local-area business leaders about the project at a Webster Business Alliance meeting held Tuesday afternoon (Feb. 4).
Artist and concrete sculptor David Adickes, who created the 67-foot-tall (20-meter) statue of Texas statesman Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas, has been commissioned to sculpt the towering astronaut. The moonwalker statue may feature an elevator to take visitors up into the astronaut's helmet, providing them a view of the area surrounding the Johnson Space Center.
An artist's rendering of the colossal astronaut depicts the statue holding onto an American flag and wearing the red stripes on his A7L spacesuit that distinguished a mission commander on the later Apollo flights.
"This would be an icon for not only Webster, but for NASA and this whole south part of Texas," Adickes told Houston ABC affiliate KTRK-TV.
.
An early artist's rendering of the Apollo Center's astronaut statue to be sculpted by artist David Adickes. (The Apollo Center)
.
The City of Webster has bought five acres of undeveloped land located near the intersection of NASA Parkway (also known as NASA Road 1) and Interstate 45 for the center.
"This attraction commemorates Apollo, which... paved the foundation for Johnson Space Center's human spaceflight program," the Apollo Center organizers' wrote. "The very best traits of humankind coalesced in Apollo — courage, intelligence, ingenuity, curiosity, and integrity — and this venue serves as a legacy and tribute to those qualities and, above all — the importance of human space travel and its widespread, beneficial impact on humanity."
Astronauts, including Apollo 7 pilot Walt Cunningham and seven-time space shuttle flier Franklin Chang Diaz, have voiced their support for the Apollo Center. Chang Diaz has pledged the help of his Webster-based rocket propulsion company, Ad Astra, to build out the planned museum.
"Ad Astra Rocket Company would contribute exhibits, mock-ups, historical hardware, photographs, videos, and animations featuring the company's pioneering technology in space power and propulsion," Chang Diaz wrote as part of a paper outlining the international allure for the Apollo Center.
In addition to exhibits and the astronaut statue, the center would also have a multi-use meeting area for conferences, performances, banquets and workshops, as well as a gift shop with Webster area hotel and tourism information, the organizers said.
An even larger building serving as an aerospace industry business incubator could be established across the street from the Apollo Center.
.
The Apollo Center will serve as an international tourist attraction, as well as host conferences and banquets. (The Apollo Center)
.
There is no time line yet for when the Apollo Center or its astronaut statue would begin construction or open to the public, Chris Thrailkill with the City of Webster's office of marketing and tourism told collectSPACE. The non-profit backing the center receives its funding through donations and grants.
The Apollo Center's planned 80-foot-tall astronaut statue is not the only physically-large tribute to space exploration in the area.
One of the three remaining 363-foot-long (110m) Saturn V rockets, which launched Apollo astronauts to the moon, is displayed adjacent to the entrance to the Johnson Space Center. And JSC's visitor center, Space Center Houston, is now in the early stages of building a new $12 million, six-story attraction centered around NASA's retired Shuttle Carrier Aircraft to open in 2015.
Quelle: collectspace
.
Update: 9.01.2014
.
Houston's own Statue of Liberty? Giant Astronaut to tower taller than Sam Houston — and include an elevator
.
Never one to pass up a chance to build a towering statue along the highway, legendary Houston artist David Adickes has signed on to design the largest project of his career — an 80-foot concrete astronaut at I-45 and NASA Parkway that would tower over the famous Sam Houston statue in size.
.
The impressive statue will stand above a newly-proposed education center dedicated to the Apollo space program and its historic moon landings. The City of Webster, which owns the land for the project, will partner with the Apollo and Beyond nonprofit to raise funds for this new space center.
The statue and Apollo center, neither of which have any direct affiliation with NASA, are expected to lure as many as 800,000 visitors a year to a community still hurting from the federal agency's cancelation of the space shuttle program in 2011.
"This would be an icon, for not only Webster but NASA and this whole south part of Texas," Adickes tells KTRK Ch. 13 about his monumental art project. "The excitement comes when I actually start trying to figure out how to do it and where it's going to be done. All the details, that's the fun part."
The artist envisions a 1960s-era astronaut triumphantly planting an American flag onto a 50-foot pedestal that will feature a small museum.
Like the Statue of Liberty or the San Jacinto monument — and unlike Adickes' 67-foot Sam Houston statue in Huntsville — the astronaut would include an elevator to lift visitors atop its massive helmet for sweeping views of Houston and Galveston. The towering Apollo homage has an anticipated cost of $5 million, with an additional $25 million required for the education center.
.
Organizers say the 20,000-square-foot complex, currently dubbed the Apollo and Beyond Center, also will serve as a sort of business and technology incubator for a region with deep ties to the aerospace industry. Multi-purpose meeting areas will host conferences and talks aimed at bringing together area tech talent with international firms.
