The Langley Research Center, located in Hampton, Virginia near the Chesapeake Bay front of Langley Air Force Base, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. LaRC has focused primarily on aeronautical research but has also tested space hardware such as the Apollo Lunar Module. In addition, many of the earliest high-profile space missions were planned and designed on-site. Langley was also considered a potential site for NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center prior to the eventual selection of Houston, Texas.
Aerial view of the Langley Research Center in 2011
A variety of research aircraft at NASA Langley in 1994
Full-scale model of the X-43 spaceplane in LaRC's 8-foot (2 m) high temperature wind tunnel
LRC materials research lab
Hampton is an independent city in Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 137,148. It is the 7th-most populous city in Virginia and 204th-most populous city in the nation. Hampton is included in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, the 37th-largest in the United States, with a total population of 1,799,674 in 2020. This area, known as "America's First Region", also includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Suffolk, as well as other smaller cities, counties, and towns of Hampton Roads.
Hampton Downtown Historic District
British invade Hampton during the War of 1812
On September 17, 1861, Mrs. Mary Smith Peake taught the first classes to African American children on the grounds of what is now Hampton University at Hampton Roads in Virginia under the shade of the Emancipation Oak.
The ruins of Hampton in 1862