BAREFOOT BEACHCOMBING

Once every 5 years, NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), which is located in Hampton, VA, opens their gates to the public for an open house. They are celebrating their 100 year anniversary this year.  It is the oldest of NASA's field centers. It was established in 1917 by National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) which was the predecessor to NASA (which itself was formed in 1958). Some of the older buildings have NACA marked on them.

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Langley mostly does aeronautical research but was the site of the Apollo lander testing. And it started the Mercury Project, which was the first US manned space program. They are also testing the Orion rocket which is intended to be the next rocket program for human spaceflight.

 

One of the big programs they are working on is the UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems or drone) program. They are programming and testing object recognition and avoidance. You can see in some of the pictures where the orange drone was able to identify trees, a model car/truck, people, and other drones. They are also working on using them for mapping.

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They also, of course, have several wind tunnels that they use for aeronautical testing. Some of them date back quite a number of years.

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An event of this magnitude must be a LOT of work for everyone involved, but EVERY single NASA employee I encountered said "Thanks for coming out." Every single one.