NASA Ames Research & Visitor Center

Nothing much to do here nowadays, parking space is limited due to construction and a visitor center (white tent) with few things to explore (see attached snapshots).

I lived in flight path 15 years and you could set your watch on daily U2 flights. I bid on wind tunnel upgrade in 1991 and never had visited Ames before. Moffat Air Museum was located in airship hanger on west side of runway. Ames explains ongoing projects like U2 cloud sampling of silver dioxide from 1983 Mexican Volcanoe that affected farmers in Canada as so much light was blocked. Also C141 Starlifter modified to carry telescope to 40,000 feet may be seen if hanger is accesible but project will be explained as well as construction and function of one of world’s earliest and biggest wind tunnel.

Outdated and everything is broken. Not very impressive. Some interesting information but they really need to update everything.

When you hear NASA you think of big, glorious, and out-​of-​this-​world. That’s not the case with this site.
The visitor center is located in a temporary hangar outside the security gates of the actual NASA Ames Research Center. It’s too dark inside and lacking real artifacts. There are a number of Unilocal photos of the giant Moffett Field hangar, wind tunnel like in «The Right Stuff», helicopters, airplanes, and other big things. None of those things are at the visitor center and inaccessible unless there is some special NASA open house.
At least the visitor center was conveniently located just off the freeway and free. We spent 20 minutes here.

I used to work here
Positives:
A lot of history (beyond just the hangers visible from Hwy 101)
For those in the military there’s a commissary
A smaller model shuttle has been added to the previous Navy field in the center of the base. It’s larger than the one in front of Cape Canaveral city hall but smaller than the one at Kennedy Space Center (good for photos)
Navy museum (with limited hours)
Right off Hwy 101
Pool for those who are affiliated with the base
Kids can run and scream around most of the base and get their energy out.
Negatives:
It’s always been the «red headed step child» of NASA so there’s pressure to close it every time budgets are tight and it has a limited budget of which the airfield absorbs a chunk, so several buildings are abandoned or not maintained.
For non-​NASA employees or military personnel there’s not a lot to see beyond the small gift center, museum (limited hours) and aging facilities on the former Navy side of the base, gated off on the NASA side.
Due to funding issues, some parts are antiquated, in disrepair and not well maintained.

We came here for NASA’s 75^th Anniversary!
We came a bit early due to limited parking. I was very surprised to see that they had already started to let people in and they weren’t taking tickets which was a plus or there would have been a huge bottleneck.
This place is huge and they had many booths set up for this large crowd. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have more indoor demonstrations. You had to sign up in advance and they sold out very quickly. The event itself was free.
They did not publicize very the 100+ food truck event they were having here, and it wasn’t easy to find either. Many of my friends who came to the event said they couldn’t find the food trucks. We did find them, there were just too many choices!!!
Overall great event, I am glad I had the opportunity to visit NASA!

Fun place to learn a bit about many of NASA’s missions and projects as NASA Ames is a key research facility. The visitor center is a self-​guided tour. It takes about 1 – 2 hours to view and read all the exhibits.
Missions and projects at Ames include entry systems, next-​gen air transportation, airborne science, low-​cost missions, lunar science, human factors, Kepler mission, SOFIA, K10 Rovers, Fruit Fly Lab, Plant Biology, Quantum computing, wind tunnels. Exhibits for *some* of these are represented at the visitor center.
New hours for the visitor center (big white tent) effective 1÷6÷2015. The new hours will be Wednesday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. — 4:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 p.m. — 4:00 p.m. Closed Mondays, Tuesdays and federal holidays. Badged employees (civil servants, contractors, student interns, those on research grants and fellowships) and sponsored visitors can get into NASA ARC…
It’s a chill place to hang out during a lunch break or with kids. It’s FREE and the A/​C feels so good on a hot summer day!

Definitely makes me feel that my childhood dream to work in the space industry was not a complete fantasy.

This place is pretty cool and in the heart of Silicon Valley!
I came here once before a couple of months ago to look at the Visitor Center. Being a resident of Silicon Valley, I decided one day that I needed to visit the important locations of my town. HOWEVER, upon getting here, I was told that visitors can only walk in and explore the visitor’s tent – nothing else. BOO HOO.
But I recently came back during a Food Truck event that took place inSIDE the NASA Research center!!! I was able to see the famous wind tunnels for testing flights and ships! It was grand. There were tons of families also getting their educational experience on, and I was SO glad I could see inside the NASA center – or at least more than the visitor’s tent.
There should be more events like this, that way the public can really get to see more and learn more about NASA/​space travel/​government excursions!

«Open house» review:
Notice the quote on the phrase open house. Essentially this is problem with the event. It was *not* an open house; it was an «open neighborhood «event. When I go to an open house, I expect access to homes/​houses I’m interested in. Nowhere can ticketers visit the buildings inside NASA. This is false advertisement by NASA and they should be sued for wasting 120k people’s Saturday time, wasting public tax dollars, wasting gas and trees.
Honestly I had a much better time at their museum last year. Both are free but one doesn’t put higher expectation than what you actually get.

This review is for the Nasa-​Ames 75^th anniversary open house on Saturday, October 18, 2014.
120,000 people (probably more) faced traffic and public transportation woes only to have to then wait and wait for shuttles to take them a half mile into the campus.
120,000 people printed tickets that weren’t checked at the entrance. Everyone had to provide names (per ticket!) when registering and select specific time slots but in reality, anyone could come at any time, for any length of time. What a waste of time. What a waste of dead trees to print all those tickets.
120,000 people walked aimlessly about the sprawling campus, with little or no directional signage.
120,000 people fought each other to the front of lines only to see posters taped to walls or a bunch of wires behind plexi.
120,000 people were thirsty and could not find water bottles for sale or water refill stations. A majority of those who didn’t manage make the trek to the food trucks within the limited time the trucks were there, had to make do with granola bars which seemed to be the only thing the sole snack booth was offering.
120,000 people were baffled by the presence of booths like the sketchy company with the spiel about auras and rejuvenation. Huh? And why did the water company have a booth at a Nasa open house?
120,000 people changed their plans and cleared their calendars for this special perhaps once-​in-​a-​lifetime day.
120,000 people did enjoy passing beneath the skeleton of Hangar One. This was the highlight. Those who managed to obtain a coveted backstage pass were the true winners, especially if they managed to locate where it was they were supposed to go.
We expected so much more. Really a disappointing event.
Nasa-​Ames also has a site where attendees can leave feedback

For their 75^th Anniversary Open House, NASA Ames tried to accommodate too many people with too few exhibits and resources. I won’t go over all the same comments and criticisms already posted here, but whoever at NASA Ames thought an open house was a good idea obviously meant well but didn’t think through these reasons NOT to do it:
— a poorly executed event with 120,000 people means 500,000+ people (after they’ve told their friends and family, and those reading via social media) will now think poorly of NASA Ames and on a broader level, government entities
— the waste of gas, CHP and NASA resources, and the public’s time and energy for an event that only truly reached a fraction of the 120,000
— showcasing technology from 20 years ago doesn’t show how innovative NASA is, only that NASA was a one-​hit wonder
— I’d take a wild guess that if Elon Musk was pondering a public event of SpaceX, he’d:
a) sell 1000 tickets for a one day event, with the proceeds donated to aeronautical engineering scholarships;
b) allow a dozen journalists in to document the day for the public;
c) realize ahead of time that quality is more important than quantity

Was excited to go today until we got there. Pluses, the food trucks. Certainly the highlight of the day. That part was a lot of fun and the different trucks were tasty. Lots of port-​o-​potties. Couldn’t turn a corner without running into a group of them. Negative, way too crowded. The booths were underwhelming and lacking. It was way too crowded to approach the booths to see much. When we did get to the booths, the information wasn’t that exciting for the kids. We parked in the lot but it took us over 2 hours to leave. We tried leaving at 1:30 but couldn’t get out of the lot until 3:35. It was ridiculous and highly unorganized. NASA needs to learn a thing or two from the Maker’s Faire if they want to have such a big, public event.

2014, 75^th aniversary open house at Nasa’s ames research center was worst event ever.
Too many people, no organized programs, no public access to any buildings (only limited few people who have the backstage tickets can get in the building) only 3 spots that you can buy beverage (if u wanna buy a water or drinks, you have to wait in a line for 30mins.) I dont know what is «open house». Why don’t they put the name «open yard’. They only opened yard area and placed some posters, booths, plastic balloon and that is it. Totally worst experience ever. My 8year old son was almost crying. Very disapointed.

2014 yearly Open House review:
Positive side: Lots of temp port a potty, pretty convenient. The 150 or so food trucks were amazing. I’d say, the food trucks, music, and resting under the trees were the highlight of the NASA Open House. Everything else is downhill.
Disorganized is an understatement. Chaos is more like it. This is worse than Disneyland on a weekend. Totally understaffed and security & staff members are stressed and pissy. Tour is extremely crowded and disorganized. Don’t bother parking. There IS bicycle parking, highly recommended and will save you 1.5 hour getting in. If you wait at Ellis entrance, DO NOT walk to the main entrance, instead take the bus because the bus wait is way shorter than walking around to get to the main gate. Wear white, it is hot hot got under the sun waiting in the line. If you don’t have any bag, stroller, etc you can skip the hour long line for inspection. Not a toddler friendly event, wait till your kid is over 10. I feel sorry for all these tired and cranky toddlers walking around with nothing interesting to see besides NASA posters. Everything has a long line, and people are cutting in left and right and nobody to enforce it. total chaos and people are very very upset in general, lots of kids crying because it’s so damn uncomfortable and people shoving and shouting.
When you finally get to the main entrance after 1 – 2 hours of foot and car traffic, there is yet another extremely long wait and ridiculous people traffic waiting to go through the security gate, so expect yet another 1 – 1.5 hour in line. While I got an email the week before, the email lacks details (lacks bicycle parking for example) and parking and walking and routing and things of that sort. Whoever organized this should be fired immediately. NASA’s past prestige and glory are long gone.
If NASA’s Open House represents the future of American space program, we’re totally fvcked.

I went to NASA’s 75^th Anniversary Open House today and it was THE WORST EXPERIENCE. ⁰⁄₁₀
1. Why are there so many people??? I truly doubt everyone had a ticket for entry. Why did I register a month ago? No one even checked my ticket. 120,000 tickets were allegedly sent out and I guarantee there were more people than that!
2. I entered through the Ellis St. Gate and just had no idea where to start. My level of excitement was still pretty high at this time so I started by going through Hanger 1 and taking some pictures. I’ve driven past it for years and it was amazing to finally be inside it! But the excitement quickly subsided as more and more people packed in. There was no one with any information or even a map. After walking around aimlessly for about 20 minutes, I stumbled upon an information booth. However, they just gave me a booklet and no other information. I read maps fairly easily, but this map was terrible and it took me another 20 minutes walking around looking for landmarks before I figured out where I was. Doesn’t matter though, it’s not like I could actually see anything.
3. Does NASA not understand what an open house is? I would have liked to go into some buildings, perhaps even see a few demonstrations. But no, we were only allowed to walk and observe building from the outside. There was a line of over 50 people to LOOK THROUGH A WINDOW. Yes, from the outside of the building. Absolutely ridiculous. Ok, well, they let us into the lobby of the Sustainability Base… it took 20 minutes to get inside and all we saw were posters.
4. Speaking of posters– I don’t understand how this makes anyone happy. You print things with 12pt font and expect people to read it? Well, they’re going to take 5 minutes and cause lines around the booths. But more importantly, if I just wanted to read about something, I have the internet. I don’t want to walk 5+ miles to read posters.
5. The booths were awful. If there was anything interactive, it was few and far in between and extremely limited. Like, one person could do it at a time. I waited about 10 minutes for a family to go through a demo only to have two kids cut in front of me. I give up. It’s not my job to discipline other people’s children.
6. There has got to be some violations from today. There were only three beverage stands in the complex (not counting the food truck area which is very distanced from the main complex). By the time I found the first beverage stand, I was nearly dying from thirst. I did not see a SINGLE water fountain the entire time and believe me when I saw I was looking the entire time.
Overall, my level of disappointment is quite high. Everyone looked miserable. Children were crying to go home. I was kicking myself on the inside for going through all this trouble to literally do nothing but aimlessly wander around for three hours and become dehydrated. NASA should have done us all a favor and kept its gates closed. It’s been 17 years since the last Open House and I can honestly say… I get it. I mean, unless this Open House was to deter people from becoming interested, then goal achieved!

I think we were luckier than most, because some of the horror stories from the Open House morning of checkpoints was not the case with our journey.
However, we arrived at 12:30 and left by 3:30, and the lines and crowds were still awful.
We parked near Villa and Shoreline, about a 10-​min walk from the Mountain View Caltrain/​VTA station. Our original plan was to take the provided shuttle from there, but after waiting for 15 minutes the security guard told us the wait was about 2 hours, so we decided to ignore the tweets saying you couldn’t walk in and take VTA to the Bayshore/​NASA station.
Only one of the VTA ticket stations was working and there were about 50 of us on the platform with the same idea, so we risked a fare inspection and hopped on anyway. By the time we arrived, it seemed security had given up prohibiting people from walking in (or checking tickets), and that was much faster than their estimated 45 minute wait for another shuttle for the 1.5 mile walk.
The aircraft were cool to get up close and look at, but I’ve seen the same at a better-​orchestrated events like air shows or the USS Midway. I should’ve prioritized the windtunnel or supercomputer but we couldn’t even find a map (or anyone who knew where one was, and cell signal was useless to look up a map) until we had been there for 2 hours and walked over 4 miles between getting there and walking around the aircraft.
To make matters worse, many of the security guards were overworked, understaffed and cranky, which led to a few annoying power-​trippers telling us we couldn’t sit in the shade next to the beverage stand «because the insurance didn’t cover non-​staff being within 20 feet of the parked trailer» despite the heat, people within 20 feet on the other side of that truck, and that that’s probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard at an event with over 100k people.
Getting back at 3:30 was worse on the crowd end, as the VTA platform was packed to the gills. Forget even finding the clipper tag station.
…On the upside, we did a novel thing and the margarita we enjoyed at dinner tasted that much better.

Their Open House today as part of the 75^th Anniversary celebration attracted huge crowds. There was no parking at the compound so we took VTA in San Jose to the NASA station and then walked in there.
Even though me and my photographer friends did enjoy photographing the cool historical aircraft as well as appreciating the distinct aerodynamic architecture of the famous Hangar One, I felt like we were in Disney World with long lines of people for any demo/​interactive thingy that was interesting, but without the «fast pass» lane. You are probably better off sitting in the comfort of your own home accessing their website on line to find out more about their research projects; unless of course you do enjoy rubbing shoulders with strangers or walking for a few hours in what felt like 100 degrees heat only to see the outside of a few buildings.
To be fair, this was the first time I was here and if not for their Open House event I would not have come here and learned a little bit about the history of Moffett Field and the NASA research center. They have a space shuttle museum, which would be cool to visit with your science minded friends or bring your kids for an educational tour. But you can always come at other times when there is no crowd and the place does not feel like a zoo. So I might not be back any time soon…

It’s not a huge museum, but I think it does a great job of introducing the work that has been conducted at NASA Ames. Anyone coming here expecting an Air and Space Museum experience is going to be disappointed. The workers here are well-​informed but sometimes a little scarce. If you’re lucky to be there (as we were) during a special presentation for a school group, you’ll be treated to a well-​done large screen show narrated by an enthusiastic and animated tour guide. The space shuttle cockpit simulation and the space station exhibit provide plenty of opportunities for hands-​on fun for the kids.

My 10 & 11 year old boys had a great time. Great way to spend an hour, especially if you have a child who loves anything Space oriented. There were a few hands on exhibits my kids really enjoyed. No it wasn’t fancy and could use updating but my kids really enjoyed it anyway!
The gift shop was a huge hit with my kids and we intentionally spent a little more because admission is Free.