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NASA OPEN HOUSE APRIL 28
NASA Langley opens doors to the future
Infrared technology can spot all sorts of things, including
possible weaknesses in the skin of an aircraft that could lead to
accidents. But what does it show about the human body?
Find out for yourself when NASA’s Langley Research Center
open its doors to the public for the first time in four years on
Saturday, April 28. The original home of the Mercury 7 astronauts
is inviting the community to see what researchers have been up to
lately and how technologies developed in Hampton Roads will
revolutionize air travel and advance space exploration.
NASA Langley has played a pivotal role in aviation and space
since 1917. Its scientists, engineers and technicians continue to
invent the future of aerospace in 220 buildings on 800 acres in
Hampton.
Twenty of those buildings will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on
April 28 during Langley’s open house, "Technology Leadership
for the New Millennium." Researchers will be on hand to explain
their discoveries. Plus, visitors will get a chance to try some
NASA innovations.
For instance, NASA scientists can determine if spacecraft and
aircraft are structurally sound … without having to take them
apart. Langley researchers have adapted those nondestructive
evaluation technologies for open house so they can be used by kids
of all ages! Among the things that visitors will be able to do: use
flying inspection robots to spot mechanical flaws, see what’s
inside their toys thanks to x-ray tomography and test their
marksmanship with a paintball meteoroid impact simulator, gauging
the results with advanced sensors.
NASA Langley will also open its main hangar so the community can
check out aircraft used to test technologies to make flying safer
and more efficient. Ten aircraft from small general aviation planes
to a passenger jet will be on display. Also scheduled to make an
appearance in the hangar will be 89-year-old female aviation
pioneer, Elinor Smith. Smith took her first plane ride in 1917 and
received her pilot’s license, signed by Orville Wright, at age
15.
A NASA astronaut will also be on hand for the Langley Open
House, Mission Specialist candidate Garrett Reisman is a certified
flight instructor, who loves to fly, ski, snowboard, rock climb and
SCUBA dive. The 33-year-old New Jersey native designed the
thruster-based attitude control system for NASA’s Earth
Observing System (EOS) PM-1 spacecraft, before being selected as an
astronaut in June 1998. Reisman reported to NASA for astronaut
training in August 1998, and has spent the years since then
learning space shuttle and International Space Station systems as
well as water and wilderness survival techniques. He is scheduled
to speak to groups in the Pearl Young Theater at 10 a.m., 1 p.m.
and 3 p.m. Reisman will also be available for media interviews
from 9 to 10 a.m. and 12:30 to 1 p.m. in the Pearl Young
Theater.
Reisman will be speaking not far from where astronauts before
him learned to walk on the moon and where engineers designed and
tested space shuttle tires. Both those facilities, Impact Dynamics
Research and Aircraft Landing Dynamics, will also be open for
visitors. Plus food and souvenirs will be for sale.
It’s NASA Langley’s "Technology Leadership for the New
Millennium," a public open house Saturday, April 28, from 9 a.m. to
4 p.m. The Langley Research Center is located near the corner of
Commander Shepard Boulevard and Armistead Avenue in Hampton.
For more information, please check the Internet at http://openhouse.larc.nasa.gov/
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