{"id":418227,"date":"2026-05-01T03:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T17:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/?p=990737"},"modified":"2026-05-01T03:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T17:13:07","slug":"nasa-goddards-greenbelt-visitor-center-marks-50th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=418227","title":{"rendered":"NASA Goddard\u2019s Greenbelt Visitor Center Marks 50th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNASA Goddard\u2019s Greenbelt Visitor Center Marks 50th Anniversary\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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This 1976 photograph shows how the visitor center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., appeared when it opened to the public for the first time.<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Trimmed in bicentennial pageantry, NASA opened a visitor center at its Goddard campus in Greenbelt, Maryland, in May 1976. Fifty years on, the Goddard Visitor Center continues to inspire through exhibits and programs on the past, present, and future of space exploration.<\/p>\n

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Dr. John Clark, then NASA Goddard’s center director, provides opening remarks at the visitor center ribbon cutting in May 1976.<\/div>\n
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When the visitor center first opened its doors (just a few weeks before the Smithsonian\u2019s National Air and Space Museum in Washington), much of it was open-air. Instead of gilded scissors, a reenactment of Dr. Robert Goddard\u2019s first rocket launch snapped the ribbon.<\/p>\n

Initial exhibits featured a full-scale mockup of the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (a Hubble telescope precursor), a phone station to transmit guests\u2019 voices 45,000 miles round trip through Applications Technology Satellite-3, and an active meteorology station displaying satellite views of Western Hemisphere weather.<\/p>\n