DATE: Sunday, July 20, 1997                 TAG: 9707200103

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A16  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: HAMPTON                           LENGTH:   61 lines

FOR ITS 80TH ANNIVERSARY, NASA LANGLEY OPENS UP TO 16,000 EAGER FANS

Few 10-year-old boys don't want to become astronauts when they grow up.

Thomas Gallagher and Sam Johnson may never get to Mars, but they got as close to space flight as they've ever come Saturday afternoon at NASA Langley Research Center's open house.

The Yorktown boys got the chance to climb inside the cockpit of a Boeing 737 airplane, snag an astronaut's autograph and soar to the skies in a flight simulator. Gallagher and Johnson milked the most out of their free admission, lingering in an exhibition hall until tour guides tore down posters and disassembled display tables.

But kids weren't the only ones exploring aerospace.

More than 16,000 people flocked to the rare open house - NASA Langley's first in three years, spokesman Keith Henry said. NASA Langley opened its doors to celebrate its 80th anniversary. It will probably not hold another open house for five years.

For many, Saturday presented a rare chance to drive blithely past security gates and official-looking signs warning,``Restricted Area - Authorized Personnel Only.''

The crowds were 50 percent larger than those at NASA Langley's two most recent open houses in 1994 and 1992, Henry said. He credited recent news coverage of the Mir space station and the Mars expedition for piquing public interest in space and aeronautics.

``People are asking a lot of questions, and a lot more educated questions than usual,'' said Thomas Yager, a senior research engineer who helped with tours. Most visitors chose to drive around the

788-acre research center and its 200 buildings, 15 of which hosted special exhibits.

Yager spent part of his afternoon discussing ways to conserve tire rubber during landings at the Aircraft Landing Dynamics Facility, where onlookers watched a 52-ton test carriage thunder down the track at 185 mph.

Other exhibits included a model rocket launch, a simulated free-space environment, a small-scale wind tunnel demonstration, electron microscopes and a ``space ball'' that simulates the experience of weightlessness.

Educators also pointed out how to locate the Mir space station with the naked eye and demonstrated how a marshmallow would appear in Mars' thin atmosphere.

Children also could make their own paper airplanes and race them for distance and accuracy, and experience what it's like to work in space by assembling Lego blocks while wearing space gloves.

Four airmen from Fort Eustis waited more than half an hour in blistering heat to step inside the cockpit of an F-15 jet.

``It's a childhood dream,'' said U.S. Air Force airman Darrin Robinson, who works with more helicopters than jets. ``I like to keep up with the technology, and this is the best airplane there is.'' MEMO: For more information about NASA Langley, visit the home page on

the World Wide Web at http://www.larc.nasa.gov ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Jack DeVries, 21, of New York, right opted for a different

perspective on NASA Langley Research Center's wind tunnel model.

Educators at another exhibit explained how to locate the Mir space

station with the naked eye.

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