PIMA Air & Space Museum Ranked No. 2 Space Museum In The US

PRESS RELEASE-   TripAdvisor announced the Tucson Pima Air & Space Museum as the second best space museum in the country! The TripAdvisor space-themed attractions in this ranking are based on the quality and quantity of reviews for space museums, planetariums, and space centers. Pima Air & Space Museum has received more than 1200 TripAdvisor reviews, predominantly excellent, winning the coveted TripAdvisor award for Excellent ratings three years in a row (2012, 13 and 14).Pima Air & Space’s ranking is between the two Smithsonian Air & Space Museums (#1, their newer Udvar-Hazy satellite site and #3, their Washington D.C. mall original site) which are government funded and offer free admission. Pima Air & Space is the largest non-government funded aerospace museum in the US with more than 300 air- and spacecraft in its collection on 80 acres.

 “The Pima Air & Space Museum is honored to be considered a top museum and to be associated with the great Smithsonian” said Yvonne Morris, the Executive Director of the Arizona Aerospace Foundation that operates the Pima Air & Space Museum. She continued, “We are grateful to our dedicated staff and volunteers who work so hard to achieve this level of excellence as our resources are limited. And we’re thankful to our visitors who take the time to offer accolades, and advice for others.”

 The Pima Air & Space Museum features one hangar dedicated to space and works closely with NASA on current space activities such as the upcoming Orion Launch including:

• temporary capsule displays in Mar./Apr. 2012 and Dec. 2013/Jan. 2014,
• signing up virtual crew members at the museum’s Soarin’ Saturday kids STEM programs and summer evening events,
• plus the museum and NASA are planning a simulcast flight-viewing party for the Orion EFT-1 launch currently scheduled for Dec. 4, 2014.

 The announcement from TripAdvisor can be found at http://ir.tripadvisor.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=859006. TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel site. Attractions bearing space-related keywords in their name and/or reviews were considered for this TripAdvisor “count down” of the Top 10. The Pima Air & Space Museum was also listed as the #7 aviation museum worldwide in a recent CNN ranking.