Jet Propulsion Laboratory Open House - Pasadena, CA

JPL Open House - an Out of this World Experience!

In early October we made the 7-hour drive out to Pasadena, CA just to attend the annual Jet Propulsion Laboratory Open House and it was an incredible event for the family. JPL has played a critical part in the exploration of our Solar System since it's founding and has helped design, develop, and manage most of the exploratory missions to Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and beyond over the past several decades. JPL has been front and center for the Mars "Viking" landers, the ongoing Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 missions, Saturn's "Cassini" mission, the Mars "Spirit" and "Opportunity" rovers, the Mars "Curiosity" Mars Science Laboratory, Pluto's "New Horizon's" mission (now exploring the Kuiper Belt), and the "Dawn" mission to Ceres and Vesta (two of the Dwarf planets orbiting in our Solar System between Mars and Jupiter). JPL helps invent the technologies needed to explore and understand our Solar System and our place in the Universe.

JPL hosts their annual Open House one weekend a year in the Fall and the event is filled with tours of the JPL facility in Pasadena including the Spacecraft Mission Control facility (where they monitor the daily operations of over a dozen different space missions), some of their research labs (where they create the technologies needed to explore the planets and space), the Vehicle Assembly Building (where they prepare the spacecraft for launch), and countless displays of the technologies and spacecraft they built. The tours start at 9AM and when we arrived at 7:30AM the line was already wrapping half-way around the facility. After entering through the security checkpoint (this is an active research and mission control facility) you are in a courtyard area with many different items on display including working versions of the Mars rovers (which they use for test purposes before they let the real rovers on Mars engage in potentially dangerous activities like driving down steep slopes). As tempting as it is to stand in awe of these incredible machines before us we decided to head directly to the Spacecraft Mission Control building for that tour. The controlled tours (the Mission Control, the Vehicle Assembly Building) and the movies are first-come-first-serve and the lines fill up quick. We were able to get into the Mission Control and watch some of the engineers monitor the health and locations of the various current missions and seem some of the live data feeds from these spacecraft. Afterwards we went out to explore more of JPL and see exhibits on past, present, and future missions.  They had information and activities for all ages and lots to see and do and learn -- too much to try to take in during our one day stay.

One of the best parts of the Open House was meeting and talking to the JPL staff members who were all over (they wore red t-shirts and were easy to see, but being a Star Trek fan I had certain reservations seeing people associated with spacecraft wearing red shirts --- think "away team members" in the original Star Trek series). We were able to meet and talk to all sorts of people who contribute to the success of these missions and help us learn more about the Solar System -- engineers, mission controllers, researchers, project managers, accountants ("no Bucks, no Buck Rogers"), and other supporting roles. Each had a story to share about their work. We met an engineer who has worked on the Saturn Cassini mission for two decades (starting back when it was just an idea on paper), a young female mission specialist who helps design the orbits for the Cassini spacecraft, an optical engineer who has worked for JPL for 41 years and helped with the aging systems for most of the spacecraft "out there" now. Each person was gracious with their time and answered as many questions as I had (... and I had a LOT). I think that this was one of the least appreciated parts of the Open House - the ability to meet the people behind the missions and see how JPL needs all sorts of talents to make a mission successful.

We plan to attend next year's JPL Open House because there was too much to see and do in the limited time we had. Some tips for next year are:

• Arrive at least 2 hours before they open in order to find parking and be near the front of the line so you can immediately head to one of the two most restricted facility tours - Spacecraft Mission Control or the Vehicle Assembly Buildings.
• Wear comfortable shoes and clothes -- you will be walking a lot and standing in a lot of lines (but they seem to go fast).
• Ask questions of anyone wearing a JPL shirt and badge -- they rarely get asked about their roles and have great stories to share.
• Be inquisitive -- there is so much to take in and so it helps to stop and take a minute or two to drink it all in. 
• Hit the food vendors BEFORE lunchtime because those lines get very, very long too. 
• Hit the gift shop early because they have a lot of really cool things (NASA and JPL clothing, gifts, glasses and mugs, pins and magnets, etc) but the gift shop gets overly crowded quickly and thus hard to see all of the merchandise. 
• Before you leave, be sure to swing by the Public Information auditorium where they have life-size mockups of some of the spacecraft including the Voyager spacecraft (it is HUGE) and a replica of the famous "golden record" that Carl Sagan and others created as a primer about Earth and humanity for any aliens that eventually encounter this intrepid spacecraft currently exploring beyond our Solar System.