A Magnificent Example of a Public/Private Partnership

In 1996, the late U.S. Congressman Bob Stump approached the Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) and asked the district to provide the leadership to build a world-class space science education complex to serve students from around the state. District officials and the PUSD Governing Board enthusiastically accepted this exciting and unique challenge: to host the first stand-alone Challenger Center in Arizona and the Southwest.

Just as it is often said that it takes a village to raise a child, it has taken an entire community to build this one-of-a-kind facility. With an incredible outpouring of community support, from the students who helped design the Center, to major corporations and local businesses, to the many members of the construction community who have come together to build the $7.3 million facility for $3.5 million, the Challenger Space Center is an outstanding example of a public/private partnership.

The story of the Challenger Space Center would not be complete without Peoria residents Kevin and Sydney Knight, who donated $1 million to the Center in January of 2000. In gratitude for their exceedingly generous donation, the Center’s building name is The Knight Space Science Education Center.

The Design Process

Architect Paul Winslow brought together a group of fifth and sixth graders and asked them one important question: “What kind of experience do you want to have at the Challenger Space Center?” This creative focus group spent a day talking about the look and feel of the building; how it would function and what the experience would entail. It is because of these innovative youngsters that the Challenger Space Center features assets such as the interior glass elevator (“We want to feel like we’re going up in space!), as well as significant amounts of color, light and glass (“if we’re going into space, we want to feel like we’re someplace that’s really high tech!”) The designers of this unique facility, one of only two stand-alone Challenger Centers in the world, have used subtle space metaphors to subliminally remind visitors that they are visiting a place like no other on planet Earth.

From sleek, silver, multi-story canisters representing booster rockets that grace the sides of the interior glass elevator, to the ten galaxy-lit columns representing countdown to liftoff, the Challenger Space Center represents the highest standards of architecture as art.

Numbers Tell the Story

The Challenger Space Center celebrated its Grand Opening on July 23, 2000. Since that time more than 60,000 multi-generational visitors, consisting of entire families, from first-graders to senior citizens, have experienced space missions, Open Houses, space camps, lectures, classes, stargazing nights, and more. Nearly 1,000 teachers have attended eight hours training, and 35,000 of the 60,000 visitors have been children. A sampling of our visitors’ roster includes Boys and Girls Clubs, church groups, home school groups, Scout organizations, retirement homes, the Veterans’ Hospital and city Parks and Recreation departments.

Dedicated Volunteers Complete the Picture

We enjoy a large volunteer staff, consisting of nearly 150 individuals, many of whom are retirees from nearby senior communities. These enthusiastic supporters have quite a varied background, with many volunteers coming from the military, high tech companies, education, NASA, etc. They sincerely believe in passing on their vast knowledge to the next generation; we are truly in their debt, because without them, the Center would not be able to serve the metropolitan Phoenix community.