NASA Ames Exploration Center

NASA Ames Exploration Center

The NASA Ames Exploration Center (also called the NASA Ames Visitor Center) is a science museum/visitor center at the entrance of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The center has the following exhibits:

• A Moon rock, a part of the lunar samples returned by the Apollo 15 mission in 1971.
• The Mercury-Redstone 1A capsule, launched in 1960 in a suborbital flight, it achieved an altitude of 130.7 miles.
• A high-resolution immersive theater with a 14-foot tall and 36-foot wide screen. The theater shows movies with footage from NASA's explorations of Mars and the planets, and about the contributions of the scientists at the NASA Ames Research Center.
• A model of the SOFIA aircraft, designed for infrared astronomy observations in the stratosphere.
• An exhibit dedicated to the Kepler Mission which is discovering planets around other stars.
• A mock-up of a space station.

The exploration center also has a gift shop where one can buy space and NASA-related memorabilia. The hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10 AM to 4 PM, and 12 PM to 4 PM on weekends. It is closed Mondays and for Federal Holidays.

Gallery

The Apollo 15 Moon rock exhibition

The Moon rock (close-up)

The Mercury-Redstone 1A capsule

Immersive theater

SOFIA aircraft model

Space station mock-up (outside view)

Space station mock-up (inside view)

Pleiades supercomputer node display

References

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