Today, we drove from Chincoteague Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore to Bodie Island on the Outer Banks in North Carolina.
Very soon after leaving camp on Chincoteague Island stopped at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center based in Maryland.
Wallops specializes in suborbital flights with high-flying balloons (20 annually), rockets (25 annually), and high flying airplanes. The balloons are composed of 0.8 mil polyethylene film, i.e., thickness of a sandwich bag, and taller that the Washington monument. They can carry 8,000 lbs. loads to 120,000 feet, i.e., 22.7 miles, and even higher with lighter payloads. They can rise above 99.5% of the atmosphere to even study space. Rockets carry equipment weighing up to 1,200 lbs. from 30 to 800 miles up. Their research includes measuring changes in the ice sheets over the north and south poles, changes in the land and sea temperatures, plant life, the sun and other planets, and testing instruments for use on such flights.
The coolest thing in the visitor center is a large globe that is a screen for projecting movies, called Science on a Sphere. Kathy and I saw a short film about Jupiter. Jupiter's surface on the sphere while a voice describes its features. (YouTube version slightly different) Actually, four projectors project the same film on four sides of the globe. Since you are sitting on one of the four sides watching only one of the projections, this gives the impression that the whole planet is being projected onto the sphere. It was very neat.
As we drove south down highway 13, etc. to the North Carolina Outer Banks, our hearts were warmed by all the "Eastern Shore for Obama" signs.
The Outer Banks are so built up and overcrowded I can't see why anyone would stay here any more. Tomorrow, I want to see the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk and leave.
Addition by Kathy: Wallops also has the distinction of being the facility that sent the first female into space. This was a rhesus monkey name Miss Sam in the early days of the space program! You can also read more about the future of the Wallops Facility in this Washington Post article.
Monday, September 24, 2012
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