Qualla: Virginia Air and Space Science Center

Virginia Air and Space Science Center: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rtphokie, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Apollo 12 Command Module Yankee Clipper completed 45 orbits of the Moon in November 1969, splashed down in the Pacific, and eventually came home to a glass atrium in downtown Hampton, Virginia. It is the centerpiece of a museum that doubles as the visitors center for NASA Langley Research Center and the Air Force component of Joint Base Langley-Eustis - the two installations next door whose engineers and pilots tested most of what hangs from the ceiling here. A B-24 Liberator. A Convair F-106 Delta Dart. An F-104 Starfighter. A YF-16 prototype. Apollo above, fighters below, and a Wright Flyer replica reminding you where all of it began.

Image: Rtphokie | CC BY-SA 3.0

Virginia Air and Space Science Center: Yankee Clipper Comes Home

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rtphokie, CC BY-SA 3.0. On November 24, 1969, Yankee Clipper splashed into the Pacific Ocean four days after Pete Conrad and Alan Bean had walked on the Moon's Ocean of Storms. The capsule completed 45 lunar orbits before bringing the crew home. Decades later it landed in Hampton, in a Space Gallery you...

Image: Rtphokie | CC BY-SA 3.0

Virginia Air and Space Science Center: An Airliner in the Atrium

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rtphokie, CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk into the Adventures in Flight gallery and a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 dominates the room. Donated by AirTran Airways - the airline whose 2012 departure devastated nearby Newport News/Williamsburg airport - the jet lets visitors sit in the cockpit, in first class, in coach. C...

Image: Rtphokie | CC BY-SA 3.0

Virginia Air and Space Science Center: A B-24 You Can Climb Into

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rtphokie, CC BY-SA 3.0. The B-24D Liberator delivers something the Smithsonian's cordoned heavy bombers cannot: an onboard film that gives visitors the sensation of riding along with the pilots. Around it cluster homebuilts and trainers and oddities - a Rutan VariEze, a Pitts Special, a Schleicher ASW 1...

Image: Rtphokie | CC BY-SA 3.0

Virginia Air and Space Science Center: Planets Hanging in the Air

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rtphokie, CC BY-SA 3.0. Above the second floor of the Space Quest exhibit, four planets hang approximately 22 feet in the air. Jupiter weighs over 750 pounds, measures ten feet across, and is the centerpiece of the largest planetary model display inside any museum in the country. Saturn is eight and a h...

Image: Rtphokie | CC BY-SA 3.0