The aerospace experts NASA have released some seriously cool virtual tours and also highlighted a few of its coolest places to entertain and educate you while at home. Check out a selection of seven tours available from NASA below by Travel+Leisure.
In 2018, NASA launched its Go for Flight simulator, which allows anyone to tour its Armstrong Flight Research Center. Thanks to Google Expeditions, digital visitors can tour an aircraft hangar, the control room, and the back-ramp area where aircraft final preparations for flight begin.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/feature/go-for-flight-in-a-virtual-tour-of-nasa-armstrong
During the virtual tour, guests can see Inside the aircraft’s main deck, the flying mission control center, and see where telescope operators, scientists, and mission directors control the telescope and view the stars, galaxies, and black holes in the great beyond.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/next-stop-the-stratosphere-via-virtual-tour
a 360-degree, virtual tour of the Hubble Space Telescope’s home for mission operations, the Space Telescope Operations Control Center (STOCC) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The tour includes visiting the lobby to learn about the spacecraft, the Mission Operations Room, the Operations Support Room, the exhibit hallway, and even a tour of the tools used by astronauts to repair the observatory.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-360-degree-virtual-tour
NASA’s guided journey through the TRAPPIST-1 star system, “known to be the home of 7 Earth-size exoplanets orbiting a star that is only a little larger than Jupiter.” The virtual experience includes a breakdown and tour of the telescope used to discover these far-off places that could hold the answer to the question, “are we alone in the universe?”
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/vr
Step out of Earth’s atmosphere with NASA astronaut Suni Williams for a tour of her home away from home, the International Space Station. Watch Williams float through space and show you all the bells and whistles (and really cool science gear) on board this floating lab.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/suni_iss_tour.html
Since you can’t take an actual vacation right now you might as well go big with a virtual one by exploring 360-degree visualizations of other planets and stars. The tours come with plenty of cool new things to learn plus free downloadable posters you can print and hang up.
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/exoplanet-travel-bureau/
If you’re going to go deep on NASA this weekend you must take a virtual pitstop at the Langley Research Center, NASA's oldest field center. On the virtual tour, guests can check out the center’s wind tunnel, its integrated engineering building, the computational research facility, and much more.
https://oh.larc.nasa.gov/oh/
https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-at-home-virtual-tours-and-augmented-reality