Last modified on June 1, 2020, at 16:29

Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History

​The Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History is a science, nature and cultural history museum established in 1961 at 3233 Briarcrest Drive in Bryan, Texas. Its collections are in the fields of archaeology, botany, conchology (sea shells), cultural history, geology, mammalogy, ornithology, and paleontology.[1]

The museum sought to display one of the four space shuttle orbiters to its collection. The orbiters were made available by NASA at the conclusion of the space shuttle program.[2] Former U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush, whose presidential library is in College Station several miles from the museum, expressed his support.[3] Museum officials were initially positive about their chances to be selected with the museum executive directory saying, ""I definitely think that we are going to get one of the shuttles,"[4] but in the end, the Bryan museum was not among those selected to receive an orbiter or simulators. Instead, nearby Texas A&M University in College Station was selected to receive a full motion shuttle simulator used by astronauts in training.[5]

Its fossil cllection includes a 15-inch Paleozoic trilobite and complete skeletons of an Ice Age cave bear, early wolf, sabre-toothed cat, along with numerous other partial skeletons. Dinosaurs are represented by the skull, vertebrae, femur, arm, an enormous tail of a hadrosaurid specimen, teeth, and various bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex. The hosaurid tail is unique for its fossilized skin.​The museum maintains memberships in the American Alliance of Museums, the Natural Science Collections Alliance, and the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections.​[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 [​https://www.brazosvalleymuseum.org/ Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History]. Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History. Retrieved on June 1, 2020.
  2. ↑ "Shuttle might dock at campus," ''Bryan-College Station Eagle'', July 10, 2010.
  3. ↑ "Bush support for shuttle," George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, You-Tube presentation no longer online.
  4. ↑ NASA's Next Mission: Finding Homes For Shuttles. National Public Radio (March 9, 2011). Retrieved on June 1, 2020.
  5. ↑ "No Shuttle in Brazos Valley, but Shuttle Simulator on the Way," KBTX-TV (CBS in Bryan, Texas), date unavailable; no longer accessible on-line.

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