Langley Research Center

By Dr. Elizabeth Ward, LaRC

To help the United States return humans to the moon in the 21st century, NASA came back to where it started the space program, Langley Research Center. Langley trained not only the Mercury 7 astronauts, but also the astronauts involved with Gemini and Apollo. Some of the first lunar landing test flights were conducted at Langley’s research facilities in the 1960s and in 2009, the Orion vehicle models are being tested at the same site. But Langley is more than a place where astronauts were trained and space vehicles are tested.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began with an act of Congress in 1958, less than a year after Sputnik I made its first orbit around the Earth in October of 1957. Prior to the space agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NACA, led US research in aeronautics for both military and civilian application.

The oldest of the NACA research facilities, Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (now Langley Research Center), began its work in 1917 in partnership with the Army Air Corps (became the US Air Force). Over 90 years later, a fleet of F-22 Raptors sit at Langley Air Force Base along with NASA wind tunnels that have been used to test aircraft since the NACA days. Locally referred to as the “East Side,” NASA has facilities on both the Air Force Base grounds and on a West Side non-military tract of land adjacent to it.

In the Langley full scale tunnel such notable aviators as Howard Hughes, Charles Lindbergh, Orville Wright, and Amelia Earhart are pictured in a photo of the tunnel taken in the 1930s. Working on the same grounds in 2009, employees have a sense of the history and achievements of their predecessors. Engineers still come from all over the globe to use facilities at NASA Langley to ensure that aircraft designs are flight worthy. But Langley is more than its facilities or its history.

Langley’s strength today is its people…engineers, scientists, technicians, and support staff. In the past Langley solved some of the biggest problems of manned flight. Today its researchers continue to tackle big problems like making air travel safer, more environmentally friendly, faster, and quieter; gathering and analyzing data on global climate phenomena; and developing new materials and structures for space access.

But who will work here in the future? Who will continue to search for solutions to the big technical problems? We hope it will be some of you. As part of the INSPIRE program you have the rare opportunity to engage with some of the current NASA employees. Take advantage of it. Ask questions; find out what you want to know that can help you with a career choice or a college choice. If opportunities come along for you to apply for something at NASA or in school, go for it. In all things, do your best, but don’t think you have to have it all together or be perfect, because no one has it all together and no one is perfect. Just do what you love and be the best that you can be. It will serve you well now and throughout your lifetime.