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| Click on the image to visit Ames (August 2001) |
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| NASA Ames Research Center - Moffett Field
Moffett Field, California is a facility in the San Francisco Bay area, formerly a U.S. Navy base and now used by NASA. Moffett Field's "Hangar One" was built for the USS Macon, a dirigible built in 1933. On July 1, 1994, Moffett Field was closed as a military base and turned over to NASA Ames Research Center.
Some of the highlights of the Ames Research Center "Exploration Center" include:
Mercury Redstone 1A (MR-1A) - This capsule was launched on December 19, 1960, and attained an altitude of 130.7 statute miles. MR-1A was the last unmanned test flight before the Mercury 7 astronauts took flight. Five months after MR-1A flew, on May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to fly in space aboard Friendship 7, a Mercury capsule nearly identical to MR-1A. MR-1A has a cracked porthole that occurred when the craft splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Moon Rock - On display in the Exploration Center is a lunar sample retrieved by the crew of Apollo 15 from the Moon's Hadley-Apennine region. This sample is part of the 169 pounds retrieved from the lunar surface during the crew's 66.9 hour stay on the Moon.
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