Oct. 29, 2015
NASA is joining the California Science Center, Los Angeles, for the science center's second annual Space Fest from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1, 2015. The event hours are Friday, Oct. 30thfrom 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on the weekend from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Besides the main attraction at the science center, the Space Shuttle Endeavour, NASA exhibits will focus on current and future missions in aeronautics, Earth science, the International Space Station, the journey to Mars and our solar system and beyond.
On Oct. 30th at 10:30 a.m. and at 2:30 p.m., NASA pilots will be on a panel showing aerial footage and discussing how they flew the shuttle carrier aircraft, a modified 747, across the country with the Space Shuttle Endeavour mounted atop to deliver it to the California Science Center.
On display will be futuristic aircraft models that show aeronautical concepts NASA is researching to continue providing technologies that are with you when you fly. People can also picture themselves as pilots with cutouts of high-altitude suits where there is space for visitors' heads for a photograph.
Other aeronautical exhibits include a potential Mars airplane. The plane will piggyback on a rover mission to Mars. Once released, it would descend into the planet's atmosphere where it would collect and transmit data for surveying future landing sites for humans.
NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center's Chief Scientist Al Bowers will explain how a Mars mission might look like for a Mars airplane. Bowers has two talks: the first is Friday, Oct. 30, at 12:30 p.m.; the other is on Sunday, Nov. 1, at 2:30 p.m.
Visitors perusing the NASA exhibit area will also see the agency's work in airborne science, which studies the Earth's climate using aircraft carrying scientific instruments.
The agency's solar system and beyond missions will include exhibits of the Juno spacecraft that is heading to Jupiter, the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn, and the nearly decade-long mission of the Dawn spacecraft to study the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres.
NASA's Journey to Mars exhibit will have the InSight Lander, which is the next mission to Mars. The Lander will study rock formation and meteorite impacts. Guests will be able to experience Mars in 3D as well as models of Mars Rovers, such as Pathfinder that was featured in the movie "The Martian."
The public will have an opportunity to have a photo taken of them in a space suit as well as learn about what the agency is doing on the International Space Station (ISS). Visitors will also learn how the agency is working with commercial space companies to get our astronauts back and forth on a U.S. spacecraft to the ISS.
Image: The Space Shuttle Endeavour atop NASA's modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft sets up on final approach for landing at Los Angeles International Airport while a NASA F/A-18 chase plane flies tight formation close beside in the final moments of the SCA-Endeavour's Tour of California on Sept. 21, 2012.