Nonprofit Plans 175-Foot Dome Around Space Shuttle Mockup

(KNSI) – The nonprofit that brought a full-scale space shuttle mockup from Florida to central Minnesota says it is planning a year-round attraction built around the spacecraft.

Inspiration Space Port says work is underway on a design that would suspend Shuttle Inspiration inside a dome 300 feet wide and 175 feet tall. The exterior would be wrapped in LED panels that the group says would make the building visible for miles. No location, cost estimate or opening date has been announced.

Plans call for visitors to walk beneath, around and through the shuttle, with flight simulators, interactive displays and hands-on science exhibits filling the space around it. Founder Jason Bernick says an earlier plan called for simply putting the shuttle on display, but the group decided it could do considerably more with it.

Cliff Dew, CEO of Jumping Frog Entertainment, is the project’s chief architect and creative director. He says the aim is a destination where families step inside space exploration rather than watch it.

Organizers also plan the Shuttle Bus Ambassador, a mobile exhibit with a space shuttle simulator that would visit schools, libraries, community centers and malls around the state.

The project remains in the planning stage, with work focused on site evaluation, attraction design, partnerships, educational collaborations and sponsorships. The group says more details will be released in the coming months.

Bernick learned in April 2024 that the mockup faced being scrapped. He paid to move it north and formed a nonprofit to take ownership. The shuttle’s 25-ton fuselage arrived in St. Cloud that June after a week-long truck trip from the Kennedy Space Center’s shuttle landing facility. Inspiration never flew in space.

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