Missouri’s comprehensive center for space

The Space Museum and Grissom Center is a nonprofit space history museum located in Bonne Terre, Missouri. Occupying a 5,000 square foot facility named in honor of Mercury 7 Astronaut Gus Grissom, the museum displays a world-class collection of aerospace artifacts spanning from the dawn of space travel to the spacecraft of today.

Housing hundreds of significant relics of the Space Race, The Space Museum and Grissom Center began as the brainchild of Museum President Earl Mullins. As a young child, Mullins collected items during the height of the Cold War. His ultimate goal to seek employment in the aerospace industry would go unfulfilled as he pursued other career opportunities and the United States deescalated their part in the Space Race.

By 2002, Mullins sought to share his collection and knowledge with others and began work to open a museum, acquiring the museum’s first building located at 116 East School Street in 2003. The Space Museum soft opened to the public in 2003 and a grand opening ceremony was held on June 24, 2006 with Lowell Grissom, brother of Mercury 7 Astronaut Gus Grissom, as the guest of honor.

creating The Grissom Center

On September 4, 2007, The Space Museum was incorporated as a 501C3 nonprofit organization. Working closely with NASA and other aerospace museums, The Space Museum amassed notable collections ranging from spacesuits to rocket engines. By the early 2010s, this collection had outgrown its existing facility and the museum initiated expansion plans into a neighboring location at 118 East School Street located within Heritage Hall.

The Grissom Center opened on March 16, 2019 with over 10 NASA astronauts, flight directors, and aerospace personnel present for the ribbon cutting. The facility was constructed over a period of more than four years with the help of the “Mercury 6”, a team of former McDonnell Aircraft Corporation engineers that had made the first human spaceflights possible decades prior.

A resource for the future

The Space Museum and Grissom Center’s comprehensive collection is a testament to the ingenuity that allowed humanity to place a man on the moon in less than a decade. Our facility showcases an array of artifacts beginning with the invention of the V-2 rocket and continuing through the Artemis and Commercial Crew spaceflight programs of today. Our galleries continually grow and evolve to inspire the next generation of pioneers involved in STEAM fields, welcoming thousands of visitors and outreach program participants from across the United States annually.