In this Summer 2022 blog post, our Washington, D.C. & Houston group shares some highlights from their trip including discussing the future of privatized space exploration with Virgin Orbit and exploring the famous stalagmites and stalactites at Louray Caverns in Shenandoah National Park!
We’ve been so busy! Here’s an update from our last couple of days… Tuesday morning our group had two very special meetings: with the think tank Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) to discuss space policy and with Virgin Orbit to discuss the future of privatized space exploration. We then headed to meet our expert Paul at the Library of Congress for a special tour of the largest library in the world, housing 173 million items! We had Salvadoran cuisine that evening followed by game night.
Wednesday we spent the entire day exploring the Udvar-Hazy Center, known as the “nation’s hangar,” which houses some of the largest planes and spacecraft of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, including Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird, the Bell X-1 (or Glamorous Glennis in which Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier), the Langley Aerodrome, and the space shuttle Discovery! We capped off our day with a pizza party and talks from NASA video journalist Pedro Cota and NASA scientist Yajaira Sierra-Sastre. This morning we packed up our bags and started our road trip to Shenandoah National Park, with a stop to explore the famous stalagmites and stalactites at Louray Caverns! More to come soon!