The borough of Mars has been awarded a $1 million state grant to go towards the construction of a public Mars and NASA education facility.
“My first reaction was ‘Wow- we did it’,” Mars Mayor Gregg Hartung told Butler Radio on Friday after learning of the news late Thursday afternoon. “And be ‘we’ I mean the entire community, the county, and everybody who was part of the process.”
The borough had applied for a $2.5 million Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project grant in April to build the Mars Discovery Center with NASA and help aid the borough’s Downtown Destination Project.
Even though not all of the funding was awarded, the mayor says it allows the borough to seriously consider buying the property which they believe would be the perfect place for the NASA center- the Woodland Valley Church.
“We will be doing as assessment of the Woodland property in downtown Mars,” Hartung said. “We have been talking with them and they seem into possibly relocating.”
The mayor says the whole idea of building a NASA center in the borough started with the creation of the Mars New Year events.
“This really began back in 2015 when NASA first came to Mars for the first Planet Mars New Years celebration,” he said. “NASA is excited about this as much as we are.”
If the center is built, NASA would provide resources including speakers, displays and educational materials.
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