Blast Off at the Novato Space Festival this Saturday at Pacheco Plaza

Celebrate the 43rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing at the 2012 Novato Space Festival at the Space Station Museum in Pacheco Plaza shopping center. This free event takes place Saturday, July 14 from 10 am to 4 pm at the museum and in Pacheco Plaza's Center Stage.

See artifacts and photographs from the 1969 moon landing; meet legendary astronaut Dan Bursch (who spent 227 days in space on the space shuttle and the International Space Station); sit in a Navy fighter jet cockpit from the USS Hornet Museum; participate in hands-on interactive exhibits from NASA, the Planetary Society, Cosmosphere, and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic; and more!

Kids can also build a snap-together space shuttle module, courtesy of HobbyTown USA, and a join the Space Book Club from Literacy Works.

For more information, visit www.thespacestationca.org or call (415) 883-1948. Pacheco Plaza is located on Ignacio Boulevard in Novato. You'll find the Space Station Museum in the center between Marin Coffee Roasters and Boca Pizzeria.

This fantastic free family event is sponsored by the W Foundation, Winans Investments, Walter Kieckhefer Company, Jeremy Forcier & First California Mortgage,  the Wreyford Family Foundation, and the Dennis Weaver Family Foundation.

If you haven't been to the Space Station Museum in Novato, it's really worth the trip. It's a wonderful free educational resource where kids can learn about space exploration in a hands-on environment. Objects on view at the museum are part of the collection of the W Foundation, a non-profit founded by Ken Winans and his wife Debbie Wreyford-Winans, and include American, Russian, and Soviet-era space equipment, clothing, photographs, a meteorite, and more.

Read about our visit to the Space Station Museum here.