Vice President Mike Pence (left) and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (right) visit the Vertical Motion Simulator, or VMS, at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley on Nov. 14, 2019. Pence and Bridenstine experienced what it’s like to pilot a lunar lander during a simulated flight in the VMS, the world’s largest flight simulator. This facility can assist in designing systems to bring American astronauts to the Moon’s surface with NASA’s Artemis program and help prepare the first woman and next man to land on the Moon to make such a landing.
During his visit to Ames, the vice president took a tour of the center that featured highlights of facilities and projects critical to the Artemis program. These included the Arc Jet Complex, NASA’s high-energy wind tunnel for testing materials and designs to protect spacecraft from intense heating when entering an atmosphere; the VIPER mission – short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover – that will send a prospecting rover to the Moon to map out the location and concentration of water ice at the lunar south pole; and the Vertical Motion Simulator.
Credit: Photo by official White House photographer Myles Cullen