McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center

Amazing place with great pieces that anyone would enjoy to see regardless of their age! A lot of fun stuff for kids and a lot of donated NASA stuff!

A kid friendly plantarium and space center with some interesting exhibits. The thermal imaging and the planterium show were big thrills for our six year old. Older kids and adults might find it a bit tame for their taste.

We visited on Mother Day weekend, free admission with our Children’s Museum membership in Keene! Our son is 2 ½ and it was a bit too early for us. We still had fun and will be back when he is more patient! He loved the thermal imaging and glass elevator. There is also an area upstairs with book and leg is!

The family was looking for something fun to do on a Sat afternoon (kids 5 and 7). We decided to head north and check out the planetarium and museum. We arrived around 11:40am and the place was practically deserted. Was a little suprised at the price of admission with planetarium show ($ 54 total). Facility was super clean and bright. Was glad there was a spacious coatroom and numerous restrooms (including a family restroom). We checked out a few exhibitis before catching the noon showing of «Attack of the Space Pirates».
The kids loved the planetarium show as the screen immerses pretty much your entire view and definitely gives the impression you are on the space voyage with the crew. Show was entertaining and educational and lasted about 40 mins.
After the show, family was hungry, so we checked out the «Countdown Café». They offer about 12 different sandwiches and 5 kids meals at a reasonable price. My wife and I were very impressed with our sandwiches (each served with chips and pickle) and the kids enjoyed their meals as well. The cashier/​cook was super friendly and brought out our food with a smile. We were very impressed.
After that, we headed back into the museum and checked out more exhibits. The infrared camera, flight/​landing simulators, and the weather forecast green screen were the highlights for the kids. Upstairs had a neat exhibit on rainforest and arctic research expeditions. We also checked out the observatory and got a good closeup view of the sun. On the way out, we browsed thru the gift shop.
Would agree that museum is relatively small. We probably spent about 90 mins total browsing the exhibits. They are breaking groound on an outdoor playground/​park in May 2014.
Overall, we enjoyed our visit. They offer a year family membership (up to 4 people) with unlimited planetarium shows for $ 100. If we go back, will most likely signup as that is bargain for unlimited weekend family (and educational) fun.

Pretty cool, if small, Space museum. A nice tribute to two New Hampshire natives. Planetarium was… juvenile, aimed at grade school aged kids. Hard to sit through as an adult. The things we do for our kids. They did have fun kid oriented art projects. We were done in about an hour. Can’t say this is a «must see» but if you have young kids & are in Concord & want to inspire a little interest in Space & science, this is a good call. They also participated in the «Blue Star» program for military members. (get you & the family in for free).

An interesting place to take the kids on a rainy afternoon. The planetarium show was very kid friendly.

We really enjoyed our visit. It’s $ 9 for adults, and one of us got in free because of the NHPR Member Card Benefit of the Month. The Center is small and contains a lot of fun interactive exhibits. I liked the large sphere onto which is projected images of the different planets and some of their moons. (Pluto’s not a planet anymore, sadly.) If you’re interested in seeing what life is like in space, meteorology, and seeing astrological bodies in the observatory, visit the Discovery Center.

Disappointing. There were very few interactive exhibits, and many of those that were there were either broken or poorly presented. We were followed about by a most annoying worker who did not know how to work the exhibits nor the information they were purported to present, and had to have the most grating nasal whine of a voice I have ever heard. NOT recommended for children who are not comfortable reading long paragraphs of dense text. The planitarium is not included in admission price. The enture venture is not worth the money.

Free? No, this place was $ 12 per adult for absolutely NOTHING of value! This is the most pathetic excuse for a museum I’ve ever seen. Half the exhibits were broken and the place is tiny. What a ripoff. The only good part is the (small) planetarium, but they make you pay the entrance fee to get to that so its a small fortune. With the planetarium it was over $ 40 for a family of three, and we were done with the exhibits after 15 minutes. I’m still mad.

The planetarium was cool, Exhibit halls are FREE. There could be more exhibits (more levels and such should be built in the future) but for now its ok. I would allow about an 30 min — an hour to see everything you want to see. Maybe 2 – 3 hours if you’re seeing a couple shows. I purchased tickets to the two shows Tonight’s Sky which was really entertaining. The presenter showed us what the configuration of the constellations and night sky looked like that night, and pointed out how to find certain objects in the sky. We located orion’s belt, taurus the bull, the 7 sisters’, Sirius, the north star (polaris), and some planets such as Mars and Saturn. A neat fact was that we can see the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye 2 million light years away. The next show I saw was about Black Holes. You get a tour of what it might be like to go into a black hole and what it might look like inside one. There is a small gift shop in the lobby. The staff was friendly and courteous and there is plenty of parking. it is easy access from 89, 93, or 393 and close to downtown concord. There is a neat glass triangular monument thing outside that reflects the sky in honor of Christa McCaulliffe who grew up and taught in Concord NH. She died in the challenger explosion in 1986 where she was to be the teacher in space. You can let her legacy live on by going into the planetarium and checking it out, as well as piloting the space shuttle discovery in for a landing in their simulator. Its pretty cool to actually land the space-​shuttle without any formal training. It doesnt look so hard to be a astronaut now. (yeah right) Anyway have fun at the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium.
Senior discounts for shows available. ½ price on thursdays for seniors.