Monday, October 28, 2019

NASA Goddard Visitor Center and Agents of Discovery

We made another trip to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The visitor center is one of the locations for Agents of Discovery, a mobile-device based activity that we have done before. So we enjoyed the exhibits, the gift shop, and discovering some new facts.

Entrance to the visitor center

My children liked getting on the concrete barriers at the front of the building. The lady at the front desk told us not to climb on them, so I guess this is the last picture of that activity.

It says "No Parking," not "No Sitting"

Inside, we saw a sign that had different messages when looking through different colored filters.

Unfiltered message

Red-filtered message

Different types of soil are found on the lunar surface. Dust, volcanic soil, and meteor remains are all found on the moon.

Lunar soil exhibit

Also on the moon are footprints. We tried out the replica on display. None of us measured up to the Apollo 14 astronauts.

Big shoe to fill

Another display has models showing how the Hubble Telescope was repaired back in the day. I miss our old shuttle system.

Doing repairs

One display explains satellite mapping by having visitors bounce a pinball off a surface. The way the ball returns mimics the way satellite signals are reflected by the Earth's surface.

Satellite pinball

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has a copy on display. The many instruments it uses to observe the moon are described, along with interactive panels. My kids weren't so interested in this.

LRO

My children really enjoyed the infrared camera display. The pictures include a regular camera and the infrared.

Posing for the infrared camera

What the regular camera saw

What the infrared camera saw

We started the Agents of Discovery challenge, only to find that the QR reader on the app wasn't working. So the indoor discoveries went undiscovered.

I did find the QR code, Mr. Squirrel

Outside, the app worked better. At the Delta-B rocket, we read how it was used to deliver over 200 payloads into orbit. The app asked us what nickname was given to this rocket. We found the answer easily on the sign describing it.

A hard working rocket

From the rocket plaza we could see the flight center in the not-to-far distance.

Where the work gets done

Another outdoor challenge was to use the directional sign by the gift shop to see which NASA center was farthest away.

Various NASA bases

One interesting form of scientific detection is the Ozone Bio-Indicator Garden. The display tells how plants are effected by lower ozone layers. The plants are grown right next to the sign, enabling us to make our own observations.

Information

These plants are out of season or completely sensitive to ozone variances

Tobacco still grows strong

We took one last set of photos before buying some astronaut ice cream (the dehydrated kind) at the gift shop.

Sticking her neck out

Our man in space

A two-headed monster?

Yes indeed

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