My visit to NASA Langley Research Center

[Boomerang]

Well i didn't post anything about this ahead of time because i wasn't 100% sure i'd get to go but today a group of the employees from the Langley visitor center which is located off Langley property got to go on a VIP tour of some of the center's facilities. I promise to get pictures up later for everyone.

Our first stop was the Impact/Landing Dynamics test facility. Built in 1965 it was originaly designed to train astronauts for the lunar landings it is now being used to do landing bag test for Orion. We got a close up look at the gantry which is used for the drop testing as well as one of the Orion test rigs that is undergo9uing testing. All the test here are land impact though they are looking to do water test as well at some point. Pictures of both will be posted later.

We went onto one of the machinbe shops where they are fabricating among other things the skin for the boilerplate Orion capsules. They had a new one currently under construction. BP-2. Also saw a machine that uses extremelt high pressure water traveling at mach 3 to cut almost any material up to diamond strength.

From there it was onto the rapid production facility where they use machines to quicly minutes to a few hours depending on the size and complexity to literaly create 3D models from nothing building them from the groud up in layers of material at high temperature when cooled they have produced wind tunnbel models among other things.

What was going to be our last stop was a Laser cutting facility where they do extremely small fine cutting with lasers. Among other things it was used during the columbia accident investigation to create disruptions in the sutrface of small models for heat testing as well as to create models of damage that may occur on other shuttle missions to see what kind of disruption the damage creates in the thermal protection system.

Now the last stop and i was lucky to see this because it wasnt going to be on the tour due to them moving equipment today we stopped at the hangar where Orion Boilerplate 1 BP-1 is being prepared to be shipped to dryden for the first pad abort test of the launch abort system. The capsule was elevated so you couldnt really see inside but it was all test related equipment inside anyway. The Boilereplate will be shipped to dryden for transport to White Sands for the tests in 2 weeks so we were lucky to get to see it. We also saw the Launch Abort System Tower that ewas being prepped. I know just about everyone here has seen an Apollo Capsule at camp or elsewhere and Orion is the same shape but it is definately much larger.

I promise to try to get pictures up later tonight so everyone can see.

[pilotgirl21]

Sounds like you had a great tour!

[Boomerang]

Well as hard as i tried to get the pictures on the hab 1 photo portal i couldnt get them to upload so they are on my myspace page. If you have myspace you can see them if you add me as a friend assuming you havent already i know some of you have. If you don;'t have myspace you can join and then add me as a friend you dont really need to do anything but join and add as a friend then you can ignore it beyond looking at the pictures. I will also get them up onto facebook in the next couple of days for those of you on there. if you are really dying to see the Boilerplate email me and i can email some pictures of it out for those of you who have neither. I will not however send out all 70+ pictures i took today for that you'll have to sign up for one of the two services or wait till i can get a flikr accounbt up with pics which i have no idea when i may get the chance to do that. So at lonbg last here is the link to my myspace page just add me as a buddy if you arent already i'll aprove you and you can see them. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... d=59436571

[Boomerang]

Ok pictures with captions have also been added to my face book page for those of you who might have it and not myspace. Check it out comments welcome here or on the site.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=564005402