NASA/Langley open house!!!

[Fud]

NASA/Langley is having an open house this Saturday (9-22) 10 am to 4 pm...
Who's going besides me 

[icepac]

I used to drop my mom off there to work and had a friend who's mom also worked there.

We used to come back around lunchtime with big gulp cups full of beer and dressed in khakis so we could sit in the courtyard and scope hotties for an hour or so.

There is also an active farm if you follow the signs to the federal highway administration research branch office and then go past it to a cia gate with a camera.

I'm sure it's more secure now and not a good idea to wander around.

They also have a boat dock and a few employees used to row a skull or kayak to work.

[nrshida]

We used to come back around lunchtime with big gulp cups full of beer and dressed in khakis so we could sit in the courtyard and scope hotties for an hour or so.

Is that like bird watching? 

[Shuffler]

We built parts for up there.

[Fud]

and Shida.....photos are permitted!!!!

[nrshida]

Epic, looking forward to some highlights 

[Fud]

SWEEEEET!!!!!! They did a vertical drop test of the Orion capsule from 25 feet into the hydraulic impact basin to simulate if the capsule had a one of the 3 chutes fail. I was like 100 feet away....video coming soon!

[Fud]

Here's the Orion space capsule (This is the test capsule) being drop tested in the Hydro Impact Basin. This was an actual test to collect data if the space capsule came were to come down with only 2 of the 3 chutes deployed. 
The capsules always came in at an angle into the water to reduce the G load on the astronauts. I heard an engineer say its only about 2-3 Gs coming down like this.

This test is at the "Gantry" where the Apollo capsules were also tested among other aircraft and vehicles...

BTW the open house was freaking awesome on the geek scale!

Here's the video of the drop test....enjoy!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR2jD4AlVsI

[Tupac]

Is that like bird watching? 

Cat watching.

[Shuffler]

Open house at NASA Houston is pretty cool too. Trying to land the shuttle is a beast for most folks. They don't let visitors on the full scale simulator but they do let you fly the softwareat a station.

[Fud]

It's too bad the open house is every 5 years at Langley...There is too much to see in the mere 6 hours its open..