Bert and I had the distinct pleasure of touring NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton VA recently. Our excellent guides were from the Office of Strategic Communications and Education. LaRC is 800 acres of cutting edge aerospace technology. It has been in existence since 1917, when it was established as the nation's first civilian aeronautics laboratory.
We were amazed and awed by the National Transonic Facility (wind tunnel) and other test facilities, like the Gantry (pictured above) where testing of lunar airbags is taking place. Yes, lunar airbags.
Langley is working on the next generation of spacecraft for missions to the Moon and to Mars, the Constellation Project, and using the newest technologies. Target date 2014, not so far away.
We were impressed by the engineers we met as well and appreciated the time they took to explain, to laymen like us, on what new and fascinating projects they were working. Can't wait to share the NASA sticker and pin with the kids, especially Bert's son, Bertel, who at 8 is already deep into space exploration via his favorite website Space.com.
Still pinching ourselves that we actually live here!
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