HAMPTON — The Hampton History Museum has a new exhibit showcasing the city’s leading role in aeronautics and space exploration, “NASA: Hampton Takes Flight”.
The exhibit will run until Dec. 1 at Hampton History Museum on 120 Old Hampton Lane.
The exhibit is an update to the museum’s Hampton History Galleries where visitors can experience 100 years of NASA history from its early days as NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) to the Space Race.
The installation features artifacts and images recently acquired from NASA Langley Research Center.
According to a news release from the city, the exhibit is being organized by Hampton History Museum curator Allen Hoilman.
He said, “The age of flight was barely a decade old when Hampton became its epicenter. From perfecting the aerodynamics of biplanes to putting men on the Moon, Hampton’s Langley has always been there.”
Among the artifacts available for viewing at the museum are images from NASA, one of the 12-foot-long wind tunnel fan blades from the 16-foot Transonic Tunnel, which could produce wind speeds of about 700 mph; wind tunnel test models, including the space shuttle, that were used in research into supersonic flight at Langley; Henry J.R. Reid’s “command button,” used before cellphones, pagers or hand-held radios, to summon the director at a moment’s notice by loudspeaker anywhere on the sprawling campus; and a Friden Mechanical Calculator like those used by “human computers,” such as Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson, to perform their complex calculations, according to the city.
This will be the first step in refreshing the museum’s 20th Century Galleries, and accompanies “When the Computer Wore a Skirt: NASA’s Human Computers,” that opened in January 2017.
To learn more about the exhibits Hampton History Museum has to offer, click here.
