One of the newest displays at the Prairie Aviation Museum is that of the Illinois Astronauts gallery. Up to this time, the Museum is aware of twenty-one astronauts that were either born in Illinois or claim Illinois as their home from the time they were a youngster. Of the twenty-one astronauts, fifteen have traveled into space. At least one austronaut, John Konrad, lost his chance to climb into space as his mission was canceled after the Challenger disaster of 1986.

John Grunsfield leads all Illinois astronauts as to the number times flying into space with five missions. Scott Altman, Steve Nagel, and Joe Tanner have flown into space four separate times. Carl Meade, Eugene Cernan, and Tom Mattingly have climbed into space on three occasions.

As a combined group, Illinois astronauts' have flown into space somewhat over 500 days to which include two Gemini missions, four Apollo flights, one SkyLab mission, and 31 STS flights for a variety of purposes. One of the Illinois astronauts, Dr. Sandra Magnus was assigned to the ISS Expedition Corps and began training for a future space station long duration mission. She flew to the space station with the crew of STS-126, launching on November 14, and arriving at the station on November 16, 2008. On her second flight, Dr. Magnus spent 4.5 months aboard the space station and returned to earth with the crew of STS-119 on March 28, 2009.

It is hoped that with the help of our Illinois astronauts' that this display will continue to grow with artifacts arriving on a regular basis. Makes sure that you stop by and view what we have already collected for this display. It is located in the James Oberman Theater area along with our 1941 Link Trainer.