Jet Propulsion Laboratory — Attraction in La Cañada Flintridge

There are no words to describe how incredible it is to be able to know a NASA building, especially JPL, where extremely competent people come together for the sake of science for the evolution of humanity. The building itself is from Caltech, but everything that is done in it is for NASA, so it can be said to be in fact in it.

The guided tour is for hardcore nerds, lasts 3 hours and has a lot of explanation. I was fascinated and ended the tours wishing there was more, but my wife was tired at the end of the tour. So consider this, not for everyone, but even tired, my wife loved the visit.

No wonder, it is a great privilege to know a little more about the place that sends probes and satellites into space, it is the central control of everything that man sent to space and is from the moon ahead, with people who are very serious about everything they do, being able to see it all up close is a tremendous privilege, especially for children, who can get in touch with such deep subjects while they are very young.

The souvenir shop is also very cool, several authentic NASA swags to flaunt around the world.

Plan your visit in advance and schedule on the site, do not miss the opportunity to meet the JPL!

Português BR

Não existem palavras para descrever o quão incrível é poder conhecer um prédio da NASA, especialmente o que abriga a JPL, onde pessoas extremamente competentes se juntam em prol da ciência para a evolução da humanidade. O prédio em si é da Caltech, mas tudo que é feito nele é para NASA, então pode-se afirmar que se está de fato nela.

O tour guiado é para nerds hardcore, dura 3 horas e tem muita explicação. Eu fiquei fascinado e achei pouco, minha esposa estava cansada no final do tour. Então leve isso em consideração, não é para todos os gostos, mas mesmo cansada, minha esposa adorou a visita.

Também não é para menos, é um privilégio muito grande poder conhecer um pouco mais do lugar que manda sondas e satélites para o espaço, é o controle central de tudo aquilo que o homem mandou pro espaço e está da Lua à diante, com pessoas que tem uma seriedade muito grande em tudo aquilo que fazem, poder ver tudo isso de perto é um privilégio enorme, especialmente para as crianças, que podem entrar em contato com assuntos tão profundos enquanto ainda são bem jovens.

A lojinha também é bem legal, vários swags autênticos da NASA para ostentar mundo afora.

Planeje antecipadamente a sua visita e agende no site, não perca a oportunidade de...

I’ve been to JPL twice—once was to get a tour from a friend who worked there, another to attend one of the “official” JPL tours with a guide employed by JPL (event pictured).

Our tour guide was FANTASTIC and such great charisma and attitude the entire 2.5-hour tour. He was great, and as someone who works in the guiding industry, I really appreciated his performance.

The tour begins with a movie about JPL—its mission and flagship satellites and science, a tour of the visitor’s center, and some great photo opps with scale models of Explorer-1, Voyager, and Cassini. There’s also a little aerogel cube which I thought was super cool.

Next, we headed over to the high bay to see the clean room where they assemble spacecraft. ASTHROS is pictured in my review.

The final stop on the tour was the Mission Control room where the Deep Space Network is monitored. There are three sites to monitor data from missions beyond the orbit of our moon (e.g., JWST, Juno, Voyager 1,2, etc.) at Goldstone, Madrid, and Canberra. We got the story of the “lucky peanuts” and could even see the mission command center which is broadcast LIVE during rover missions (the scenes of all the scientists high-fiving come from that room!)

My only point of constructive feedback is that it would have been nice to spend more time at the clean room view and look at some of the exhibits/displays there. I think because our group was so large (30+), we had to rush a bit between stopping points. Otherwise, this was a 10/10 experience. It’s such a privilege to get to see the amazing work and science being...

After an employee asked to see my phone with a photo of my passport as a form of ID, a different employee from the security section came back holding my phone giving me an attitude for no reason saying "don't give him your phone, it's a liability issue." Ok well he clearly asked to see my phone so he can look at it so she was wrong about that. I was there for a school field trip for a tour of the facility from 11am to 2pm, I got there around 11:30 and was told to wait for the security department to open at noon, so I wait for them in the lobby to get back to me because my photo was under review whether they would let me in or not, they never got back to me by the time the field trip was already over at 2pm. The supervisor who was supposed to look at my photo apparently never did. They told me to show some form of my ID in order get in, that's exactly what I did. Overall the 2 people who particularly spoke with me were just rude and unhelpful. If I was to go back I'd bring every form of my ID, even if they're unnecessary...