Saturday, July 10, 2010

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Visitor Center is a small, sophisticated, and educational museum.

At entry, we were greeted by a notice that model rocket demonstrations were suspended until NASA receives a permit from the FAA to launch rockets in restricted airspace.

The center's exhibits explain the scientific significance of, and the science behind the programs conducted at the Goddard Space Flight Center: satellite and space-based telescope monitoring, and development of space exploration robots. Several of the exhibits are interactive, and some feature games geared at children. Several exhibits relate to satellites gathering data concerning the earth. Others focus on the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe beyond.

The visitor center features a theater with a globe-shaped screen at it's center. Four projectors shine onto the globe. The movie explains the work of NASA in general and the Goddard Space Flight Center in particular. During the course of the film, bright colorful images of the earth were projected onto the globe, as well other planets, giving this viewer the feeling of the planets from outer space.

Behind the visitor center, is the rocket garden where several small and medium-sized rockets are on display.

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is located off Greenbelt Road in Greenbelt, Maryland. The visitor center is accessible from the oddly named ICESat Road, which is the second entrance to the space flight center one passes when coming from the west.
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1 comment:

Dan (gogblog) said...

Hi Nowhere man! I picked up your blog about the Visitor Center in my Google alerts. I'm a science writer at Goddard. If you have any interest in what we do INSIDE the gates, check out my new science blog: Geeked On Goddard. I think the cosmology/origin of universe stuff we do would probably blow your philosophical mind. At least, that's what it does to me.