this morning, a friend sent me a photo of himself inside Hangar One (one of the largest freestanding structures on Earth) and i immediately was jealous — and wondered how in the world he got in there. after a bit of digging, it turned out the facility Hangar One is located at, the Ames Research Center, is 75 years old this year and was holding an open house! as it turns out, another friend (thank you @wintersweet!) had tickets she wasn’t going to use and off i went!
while perhaps not as famous as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory*, Ames has a storied past (and continues to be NASA’s research center in Silicon Valley), so when you have a geek event in the heart of geek country, it’s bound to be busy. think Disneyland-level crowding (and about the same demographics, kids and all). man, it was a zoo and logistics (transportation, wayfinding, food) were…troublesome…(though they had plenty of portapotties!) but still, a great experience. AND i got to go inside Hangar One myself!
* i was fortunate that my high school was literally down the street from JPL and was able to go to lectures and presentations there on a regular basis (they had a special biweekly evening event for high schoolers) — this reminded me a lot of that!
as always, more pictures on flickr, but the highlights were Hangar One, the ginormous wind tunnels (huge buildings and pipes and ducts) and the poor rover that got stuck on a hill heh.
In 1939 (ART DECO YO), the Ames Research Center was founded to conduct wind tunnel research.
Hangar One, one of the world’s largest buildings covering about 8 acres, was built even earlier, in 1933, to house the Navy’s airship USS Macon.
The “orange peel” doors at the end. Up until a couple years ago, there were panels covering the entire exterior.
A 20 megawatt arc jet that produces a flow of air at over 10,000°F and 10,000 miles per hour, used to test heat shields of aircraft. The largest on site is 60 megawatts.
Part of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel — check out the wiki page for a cool overhead view.
A duct of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel
Many older buildings date to pre-NASA times. NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) was a precursor of NASA.
A panorama of part of the 80’x120′ wind tunnel, part of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex. It’s large enough to fit aircraft inside and is the largest wind tunnel section in the world, in fact!
An air intake of the 80’x120′ wind tunnel. YUUUUUGGGGEEEE.
I’m not sure if this rover drives itself or if it is remote controlled, but it was stuck on this hill for a long time. An employee came out to take a picture of it (for research purposes, I suppose), and shortly after it resumed its course.