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Ask Slashdot: Science Sights To See?
First time accepted submitter steevven1 writes "My girlfriend and I are planning a long trip across the United States for this summer, and we'd like to see the usual sights, but we both have a bit of a geeky side, and we were trying to think of science-related marvels to see along the way. So far, we have thought of places like the Very Large Array in New Mexico and Fermilab in Illinois. Any suggestions?"
Hayden Planetarium på American Museum of Natural History in New York
If with 'long trip' Alaska is also included, then you could visit HAARP. :) :p
Might be interesting to see what all the 'new age' fuss is about in a scientific perspective.
I have heard good things about the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA:
http://www.computerhistory.org/
Sadly, the place was closed for renovations when I happened to be in town...
.: Max Romantschuk
Two NASA facilities fun to tour are Langley and Wallops Island.
there is a good list of nerdy day trips at nerdy day trips dot com
http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/bmvc/
Get a tour of super huge radio telescopes and the drive to get there is pretty too.
try the HAARP
When I was in California with my wife, we went to The Tech (http://www.thetech.org/) and the Intel museum (http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/company-overview/intel-museum.html)
We found the Tech interesting and wish we had more time to see it (we got there a couple hours before closing), the Intel museum wasn't anything special and could probably be skipped unless you really like looking at old silicon wafers or can't miss the opportunity to wear one of those bunny suits for a photo op.
My family went there last fall and and the question I kept asking myself was "How did something that big move that fast?" Really it's more of an engineering thing I guess, but plenty of science went into Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.
Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream factory in Burlington,VT? That must be science.... or art? Nevermind... :-)
There is a historic marker UNIVAC (1950's) outside the former Eckert Mauchly building in East Falls - Philadelphia. The owners of the building worked with me and others to get a historic marker. They turned it into a farmers market with historic photos inside as a small museum. In West Philadelphia on the University of Pennsylvania's campus is another historic marker for ENIAC and a small museum inside the building.
If you don't mind driving up long, windy roads and turning off your cell phone, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory has a visitor center at Kitt Peak -- they have a bunch of telescopes there, including a solar telescope, so it's possible that they might be observing if it's not too windy. (it was too windy when I went there).
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/kpoutreach.html
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Near Arco, Idaho, is the site of Experimental Breeder Reactor 1.
"At 1:50 pm on December 20, 1951 it became the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plant when it produced sufficient electricity to illuminate four 200-watt light bulbs."
It's decommissioned now, but the building and much of the original equipment is still there, along with good museum exhibits.
You haven't said what route you're taking across the States, but Arco is along the "Oregon Trail" as documented in the guidebook "Road Trip USA" (which I thoroughly recommend, having driven four of its cross-country routes)
Vast number of options here : http://www.nerdydaytrips.com/
Kennedy Space Center has some impressive buildings, but the museum sucks -- looks like it has been forgotten there.
You might even catch a launch: http://kennedyspacecenter.com/events.aspx#2011/11/0/
I'm from Belgium but in Arizona I can recommend:
- Pima Air and Space museum near Tucson
- Titan Missile Museam near Tucson as well
- Biosphere II in Oracle, Arizona
- Meteor Crater near Winslow
The Barringer Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona is a must-visit if you're passing within, ooh, two hours drive from it.
If it was in any other state, it would be the biggest hole in the ground in the state. But it's in Arizona.
The Grand Canyon has to be seen too. You could call that nerdy if you're into geology.
Does this question include natural features that are scientifically interesting? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I know there are some interesting ones out there.
If you visit Boston area Clay Center Observatory ( http://www.clayobservatory.org/ ) is worth seeing.
Smithsonian Air and Space museum, Smithsonian History museum, Spy museum, Washington DC
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Einstein's House, Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, Princeton, New Jersey
Edison Labs, West Orange, New Jersey
Dinosaur State Park, Connecticut
Falling Water, Pennsylvania
One MicroSoft way ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
If you hit Washington, DC, then you should definitely check out the Smithsonian along the Mall. The National Air and Space Museum is especially good, although crowded in the summer. Make sure to check out the kid's section, which has a bunch of wind tunnels and other fun things that adults will get a kick out of. They also have a really great annex full of cool aircraft next to Dulles airport about an hour west of the city. It would also be a terrible shame if you didn't visit one or more of our national parks while you're in the US. Our varied landscape and remote stretches of wilderness define the character of our nation perhaps more than any other single thing. Just make sure to pack plenty of water and basic survival gear, as some of the parks can be quite remote and wild. Wherever you end up visiting, you'll want to keep a sense of scale in mind. The US is rather large, in ways that many of our visitors aren't really mentally prepared for. Consider limiting yourself to one or two regions, so that you get more time actually seeing things instead of racing from place to place. I hope you enjoy your visit!
Don't forget the world's largest ball of string in Darwin, Minnesota. Although there may be others.
Tomorrow I'm going on a date to Discovery World. We're in our early twenties.
Try this :)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geek-Atlas-Places-Science-Technology/dp/0596523203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322141665&sr=8-1
In Boston area Clay Center Observatory ( http://www.clayobservatory.org/ ) is worth visiting if you are interested in state of the art imaging of fast moving objects in earth object. There is also ham radio club in the premises.
Hoover Dam is worth a visit. It's overwhelming in its size and design. I hope they're re-opened the full tour that I took in the early 1990s (it was closed to tourists after 9/11 and incrementally re-opened later).
Check out the The Geek Atlas by John Graham-Cumming. It spans 128 places covering various technologies from biological viruses to aviation, space and computers. Gives nice background information and is worth reading even if your not traveling
I am not sure where the OP is from but it is winter in North America though officially the calendar says autumn. Maybe the trip should be postponed until summer arrives in 2012.
Take a ride on a rotating elevator in the St. Louis Arch. It's a real feat of engineering and it's an interesting place to visit. If you become friendly with the people controlling the elevator, they will let you see the graphical Visual Basic application which runs the whole thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Arch
Yes, because no matter how different a woman is, in the end they're all pretty much the same.
Besides, if he's below 30, chances are the only MacGuyver he knows will be the one from the recent "remake" movie... do you seriously wish that upon anybody?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The "Laser Lab" in Rochester, NY does research on fusion. Tours show the entire apparatus. Check tour schedules because they are not every day.
Not a hard science site, but one that exhibits the pseudo-science that was used in the treatment of mental illness.
As a video game geek, a few recommendations:
This summer (2012) the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., will be hosting "The Art of Video Games".
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/
In New Hampshire, there is one of the largest (if not the largest) arcade of classic video games: "Fun Spot"
http://www.funspotnh.com/
If thirsty and heading through NJ, there is always the semi-famous "Barcade":
http://barcadejerseycity.com/directions/
Depending on when you go, you can also go to the Trinity site on White Sands where the first atomic bomb was tested. They open it up only twice a year on the first Saturday in April and October. If you are already down in New Mexico for the VLA there is the National Solar Observatory near Alamogordo.
in Ft Meade, Maryland
Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin still holds the world's largest refractor in a beautiful 19th century building. The Astronomer royale of Scotland once called it, "The Taj Mahal of astronomy" and perfectly fits the stereotype of what an observatory should look like. Their visiting hours are meager and much of the lovely grounds was turned into a housing development during the property bubble, but it's well worth a visit.
Venture further north to the Wisconsin Dells, a down-to-earth tourist trap where you'll find water parks, Indian trading posts and.... the Mir space station? Yep. One Mir copy fell out of orbit, the other is somewhere in Russia and this one is in Wisconsin.
The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry isn't my favorite science museum, but it is big and was recently updated.
The university of Chicago's old Stagg Field was demolished (happily, via non-nuclear means) but you can visit a sculpture at the site of the world's first man-made atomic pile.
If you are in LA, drive up the mountain to the Mount Wilson Observatory in honour of Edwin Hubble. If you like observatories you can do the one in Griffith Park in the same day (if it isn't closed for refurbishment). It has appeared in at least one Star Trek episode. If in the southern deserts, visit the Hoover dam and Carlsbad Caverns. In San Francisco, I thought the exploratorium wasn't bad as science museums go.
http://www.cosmo.org/ I went here this summer, it's in Hutchison, KS, and has a wide range of actual flight hardware from various space missions - including the Apollo 13 CM. There's also an actual SR-71 Blackbird and genuine V-1 and V-2 rockets from WWII. Worth a trip if you're passing through!
I recommend - Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That's from where the space shuttle used to get launch. It's pretty cool. Soudan Underground Mine in Minnesota (neutrino detector) - Also there is Lake Superior coastline close by so it can be a fun trip which gives you your science fix (neutrino detector), creep fix (being three quarters of a mile underground in a mine) and nature fix (beautiful Lake Superior coastline and state parks)
The Sir Adam Beck Generating Station for Niagara Falls. The Boston Science Museum, the lightening show is always worth it. Some of the Big Science Museums have reciprocity memberships with others across the country, perhaps joining one will save you $ on the entrance fees. Get some books on CD for your trip. Brief History of Time, and Robert Heinlein, star ship troopers, the moon is a harsh mistress are nice and long. And get her a diamond ring! Any girl friend who is willing to go on a long car trip to see science stuff is wife material!
There's the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas: http://www.cosmo.org/
And Cheyenne Mountain/NORAD in Colorado Springs.
Edwards AFB - you need to book in advance, but you get to visit the NASA Dryden FRC. Camp in the forest above Los Alamos and watch it twinkle, while imagining the strange green glow (best done in summer)
Does anyone know if they still give guided tours? http://www.physics.umn.edu/outreach/soudan/tour/
Cape Canaveral seems an obvious suggestion. Maybe the White Sands Missile Range, if you're interested in this stuff (you can visit the Trinity ground zero). Maybe Google headquarters if you into computers.
What's with the same old stupid 'girlfriend' humor? Geeks are themselves responsible for their 'girlfriend-less' image. Because they somehow manage to take pride in disparaging themselves when it comes to girlfriends and don't miss any opportunity to project themselves as lonely, girlfriend less pr0n addicts.
...where Reese unloaded a shotgun on the first ever Terminator.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Is very worth stopping by and free.
The Henry Ford museum in Detroit is good too but their car exhibit - which is 80% of the reason to go - is down right now for remodeling. They also have some huge locomotives, other steam engines, farm equipment, and machine tools. When the car exhibit is back up it is totally worth it. They also offer a tour of the Ford Rouge manufacturing plant.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you are already in New Mexico, this place is on the highway between Las Cruces and Alamogordo. You reach it by going through the security gate for the Missile Range itself.
Dearborn, MI (near Detroit) -- new name for the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village. Old Henry realized that cars (and his Model T in particular) were changing the American landscape. He set out to preserve interesting bits by moving them to his collection...like the Wright Brothers workshop where their first airplanes were built.
Especially the computer wing. There's a great computer display.
They're using their grammar skills there.
If you are in the Los Alamos area you must check out the Black Hole of Los Alamos. It is a surplus shop with all kinds of lab equipment and government surplus items. The late owner used to work in nuclear weapons research before deciding nuclear disarmament was a better option. Really a pretty neat place with all kinds of junk.
http://www.blackholesurplus.com/
Also, if you go near Roswell you should check out The International UFO Museum and Research Center. It's cheasy, but it's only $5 to get in. There are a handful of neat little shops and restaurants with alien themes around town that I enjoyed when I was there as well.
http://www.roswellufomuseum.com/
Seconded. And the VLA has more comprehensive tours on the Trinity Site weekends.
But there's more to it than that, there's the Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, some stuff in Los Alamos, and if your into such things, Roswell.
Sorry to sound like an ad for New Mexico. There's a lot of lousy parts of the state, too.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
It's the same with the stupid "sitting indoors with delivery pizza" stereotype.
I hate it.
I know plenty of geeks with nice wives/girlfriends, who eat healthily and exercise.
as you pass by the New River bridge in WV is spectacular
Titusville PA where oil was first drilled for is techy history
... er, responding to myself. But that should have been:
"I know plenty of geeks with nice wives/girlfriends/husbands/boyfriends"...
On a trip across the country we visited Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and the Argonne National Lab West in Idaho. The latter had the first atomic reactor to produce power. The latter has been merged into the Idaho National Lab. Here is a description of the reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Breeder_Reactor_I It is open to the public between memorial day and labor day.
It's a simple science experiment, and worthwhile to experience at least once. You are surprisingly buoyant in the dense water, compared to fresh water or ocean swimming.
The first paragraph should begin "MY GIRLFRIEND and I are planning..." :-P
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The Air and Space Museum in DC is amazing I've heard. I've always wanted to go there.
For something in the middle of the country, check out the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS. A very, very good air and space museum, and home to unique objects like the Liberty Bell 7 capsule and the Apollo 13 Command Module.
http://http://www.cosmo.org/
On the west coast, the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Then drive down I-280 and see the SLAC – don't know if they have a visitors center. Over to Berkeley to see UCB. Moffett Field and 1 Infinite Loop Drive in the Sili Valley. Carry on south to L.A. and visit JPL – call to find out about seeing the museum in the visitor center – and Caltech; both in Pasadena.
On the east coast Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills, NC. The MIT museum and MIT, including the Infinite Corridor, in Cambridge.
If you are in Ill, and more appropriately Chi-town, you must go see Chicago museum of Science and industry. If you are coming out west, we have far too many active projects going on, so items will not be as available. However, I know that this is not science, but since you are driving and on your way west, you really should see the Grand Canyon. Now, there is a glass ledge in which you get to walk out on and OVER the canyon. You can do the same at the sears tower in chi-town(yeah, yeah, I know it was renamed, but any local will know it as the sears; besides you can not miss it if you are in the city). If you make it up to Seattle, stop in at Boeing's museum. You can sit in a SR-71 and see how it felt (cramped and primitive). Beautiful lines on her though.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
National Atomic Museum at Kirtland AFB near Albuquerque, NM
National Museum of the Air Force, at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH
Or childish comic book fan who plays with toys and takes star-something way too seriously.
Thank Big Bang Theory.
South of Houston. You can even stop at the space-theme Fry's on the way down.
You said you'd be in New Mexico. There are lots of geek places to visit. Geologically, Carlsbad Caverns is incredible. By far the most impressive public-access cave I've ever been in. In addition to the VLA, there's Los Alamos (several museums dedicated to nuclear stuff), Cloudcroft (the solar observatory near there in Sunspot), Alamogordo's Museum of Space History, White Sands (largest gypsum-sand desert in the world. Nothing but blinding white as far as you can see), Valley of Fires - a huge ancient lava flow that you can walk around in/on. There's Bandelier outside of Santa Fe - the 10,000+ year old human cliff dweller settlement. Check their website before you go though - they've had issues with wildfires and flash floods, so what's open at any given day is in flux right now.
If you want different geek fun, Roswell is always amusing with all their UFO stuff. Even the McDonalds is shaped like a flying saucer.
There's more in the state too, like the lightning field, etc, but those suggestions should keep you busy for awhile.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
I consider it a must see. If you you are into aviatin then Fantasy of Flight, the EAA museum in Lakeland FL. And the navy air museum. In Pensacola are all very good. If oceanograph is of interest Harbor Branch in Fort. Enev Pierce is worth a stop. Thing is the US is really big. Even I listed in Florida would take several days in not a week.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Two comments: first, you will probably not see any " Science." You may see the results of engineering feats ... but check out places well before you go too far out of your way; some " science sites" that I am aware of actually consist of two parts: the places where science is done and where they really wish you would go away and leave them alone, and the other parts -- where the "outreach" people have set up demos. The Air and Space Museum in D.C. is a fantastic place to visit, and I'd recommend that, but (for example) you should not expect to see the science or engineering behind the Blackbird. If you saw any genuine supercomputers, you'd see a large room full of cabinets, but no science behind the calculations being done (mostly by people in other locations :-)
Lots to see, and fun, but be thoughtful about what you are looking for.
tony
Don't forget Meteor Crater in AZ! For an added bonus, the Petrified Forest National Park is roughly 80 miles by road to the east.
Whew! This water sure is cold!
Some scientific sites are either no longer existent, or not much to look at. Sure, there are paleontological sites and museums you can visit, but some places either aren't around or don't take visitors. For example, I visited the University of Chicago many years ago for something unrelated to its history and found that you cannot visit the site where they split the first atom because the site has been demolished long ago.
A little more information could get a really good list going. And some insight into exactly what parts of the country you are willing or planning to visit would help, too.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The Lowell observatory has a nice property and good tour, including the telescope and the original photographic plates used to discover Pluto. If you're going to the Grand Canyon, it's pretty close. You can do it in a half-day. I suggest reading, "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" by Mike Brown to round out the experience (or the audiobook, since you're driving).
Agree with you there. I like Big Bang Theory as a comedy but hate that they only strengthen 'the comic book nerd who never gets laid' stereotype.
It happens to be true, that's why.
Maybe for you. Sorry to hear that.
The Mütter Museum of medical oddities in Philadelphia is one that has been on my list for a long time. Haven't made it yet, but how can you not want to see the place that exhibits Einstein's brain?
If you are already going to be in New Mexico to see the Very Large Array, try to swing by the Carlsbad Caverns: http://www.nps.gov/cave/index.htm
Sure, it's not tech-oriented, but I'm sure you can get your geology geeking on. It's not often one is in the area (BFE New Mexico), so take the opportunity. The caverns are not to be missed!
http://www.atomictestingmuseum.org/index.asp
I hear though that the Robobrains can be hard to get around. It helps to have the robotics expert perk.
There are plenty of science museums throughout the country. The Association of Science - Technology Centers (ASTC) has more specific information, including a search engine, at http://www.astc.org/sciencecenters/find.php
These museums run a range from natural history (Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly), science museums for the general public (Boston's Museum of Science), Planetariums (Barlow Planetarium at UW Fox Valley), harder science museums (Harvard museum of Natural History, Woods Hole Oceanographic, National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO), Transportation (North Carolina Transportation Museum), Aerospace (Virginia Air & Space Center), Medicine (International Museum of Surgical Science), botanical garden (Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens in Florida), and even a Presidential Library (McKinley's in Canton OH).
Similarly, it may be worth checking out the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which other than having the obvious members, has a number of science centers included (Boston's MoS, California Science Center, etc.).
Beyond those, there are some obvious choices. The Smithsonian and other DC museums have plenty of geek options. 'Air and Space' (including the annex at Dulles) and Natural History are the 2 obvious ones. International Spy Museum is another. In Boston, you could include a campus tour of MIT along with the various local museums and the Mapparium. Any of the various NASA visitor centers across the country (Houston or Cape Canaveral are probably the best options of those). For just impressive engineering, the Hoover Damn, and the CN Tower (Yeah, technically Canada. Although if you're going from Boston or NYC to Chicago, that can be on the route). Also the Golden Gate, Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), and Empire State Building, as well.
If you are interested in anatomy and physiology, you could look up where Body Worlds or Bodies: The Exhibition (or one of the competitors) is being exhibited.
Depending on when and where you go, you can also have the trip coincide with major SF/Fantasy conventions (Dragon*Con, PAX, GenCon, etc.).
Add in UCB Berkeley's Cyclotron, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Spaceport America or Mojave Air and Space Port, an atomic museum (National Museum of Nuclear Science and History or Los Almos Historical Museum), and a pilgrimage to a Silicon Valley site (the Apple Museum?), and it should be fairly complete.
The US Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio, and the US Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola Fla are both excellent.
In northern Minn. there is an iorn mine that has been turned into a state museum thats cool
Since you're planning on seeing Fermilab... You probably ought to go catch the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Some of the best science related exhibits I've seen in a museum, including a three story tall vortex demo and optics demos. Combine that with some of the space stuff (Like the Apollo 8 Command Capsule...) it's pretty cool and science geeky. Someone already mentioned the Smithsonian- I'd have to second the National Air and Space Museum.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ Located in San Francisco, near the Presidio, which is a bit east of the entrance to the Golden Gate bridge. I haven't been there in years, but it's a wonderful, creative science learning space, aimed somewhat at children.
Sedan Crater is pretty cool - one of the tests where they were testing to see if nuclear bombs could be used for engineering projects like digging canals and opening mines lol. But start planning now.
There's an area in the Idaho deserts where even the roadside rest stops have radiation counters. It's an area in which much of the US's early nuclear reactor experimentation was done. I've only driven through, and it's a very stark area (my first hint that something weird was going on: how come the cell phone system has such terrific 3G coverage out here in the middle of nowhere?) Anyway, a Web search suggests that there's a museum in honor of all this: http://www.inl.gov/ebr/d/ebr-i-brochure.pdf No clue whether it's still open or worth the trouble, but if you're anywhere close it might be worth checking out. Bring your lead outerwear.
Having been there around 2000 perhaps things have changed a little bit but... a) coming from the central/eastern part of the state, do not assume there are no coppers on that road. There are as my friend found out b) VLA is self guided. c) If you plan a bit better than we did you might be able to check out that lighting farm thing. d) there is only one place to stay in Quemado but there is/was a bar with a pool table. I think Grant AZ is the nearest "big" place and its a bit of a hike. We actually pulled off road and crashed a while in our lawn chairs - it was late night and you probably won't find many darker places to check out the stars. There are also a number of lava flows and what not on the way to AZ.
And if you are going to be in NM, there is also White Sands and I think the solar observatory is still open but slated to be moved elsewhere. Check on that.
Two more recommendation I didn't see on the list:
The SciFi museum and hall of Fame in Seattle: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60878-d493346-Reviews-Science_Fiction_Museum_and_Hall_of_Fame-Seattle_Washington.html
The Spy museum in D.C. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60878-d493346-Reviews-Science_Fiction_Museum_and_Hall_of_Fame-Seattle_Washington.html
If you like aircraft at all, the collection at Wright-Pat is simply amazing. Like the Smithsonian, a one-day visit is just a tantalizing sample.
Wear good walking shoes, it is enormous.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
That site is only open on 1st Saturday of April and 1st Saturday of October, if my memory serves me correctly. It's the first place where the atomic bomb testing was produced. Sunspot is quite an interesting observatory though I do not know if it's open to the public and it's located in Sunspot, NM. Space Museum of Alamogordo, New Mexico is another recommendation. The Meteor Crater out in Arizona. Lava field out of western part of Carizozo, NM. Gosh, I didn't realized that's a lot of places out in southern NM.
On the other end of I-40, in eastern Tennessee, you can visit another major Manhattan Project site. There is the American Museum of Science and Energy in town, and you can also tour the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, home of the Graphite Reactor and the Spallation Neutron Source, among other things. Also, within an hour's drive away is Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Gatlinburg, Tennessee, with all sorts of fun attractions (though mostly non-science-based).
Hard to drive to, but if you are in Puerto Rico, this is a must. It's even bigger than that. You can pretend you are James Bond running around.
The Goddard Rocket Museum is in Roswell. The new space port is around I-25 in New Mexico as well, but I don't know what they have in the way of tours.
If you are into trains is cool place to go.
This is on my list next time I'm through the USA:
http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/places/nw01/index.shtml
LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravity Observatory) and B-Reactor (the first full-scale nuclear reactor) are pretty cool, I think (hometown bias, maybe). See http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/ and http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/
NASA Space Center in Houston. See a Saturn V rocket and Mission control and several other marvels of wonders.
if your pants fit well, it's not only because of the pants
The CIA Museum in Langley supposedly has some very interesting, and very geeky, stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Museum.
Except, it is not open to the public, nobody knows where it is, visiting hours ???, and maybe the place doesn't exist at all. It could be all part of an elaborate counter-intelligence disinformation ruse.
So when you get back from your trip, don't tell us what you didn't see there . . .
Or try the NSA's National Cryptologic Museum http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/museum/
They hand out some nice guides to the exhibit, but they are a bitch to decrypt, so you can't even read about what you didn't see there.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Since you'll be in the area for fermilab.
Fayban park is close by. The American code breaker's estate has some cool sites. Windmill, house desinged by Frank Lloyd Wright.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Fabyan
Chicago's Millennium Park's cloudscape is popular with all tourists. For the nerdy type try working out an efficient rendering algorthm for its reflections. Extra credit if your answer is in the form of a video game.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
SLAC at Stanford in Palo Alto runs some great tours - http://www.slac.stanford.edu/
And while you're in Palo Alto, go to the Palo Alto Creamery (formerly named Peninsula Creamery - it's a long story), at the corner of Emerson and Hamilton. Best milk shake on the planet. It's been there since the 1920s, and the quality of the food hasn't changed in the 20+ years I've been dropping in on my occasional visits to the area.
Ever wonder how NASA tracks ever object in space? It's got three massive transmitters in TX, AZ, AL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Space_Surveillance_System
HTFU
There are a few nice places to head out to over in Las Vegas. I mean who needs more reason to go to Las Vegas anyways?
One is the Atomic Testing museum which talks about the Nevada test site and is more accessible then the test site itself. Also many of the folks there worked at the test site for one reason or another. Some of them it was for drilling the really deep straight holes (which apparently is a bit more complicated than it sounds) that they did underground nuclear testing with along with a number of other professions. For a time the curator of the museum was a chemical engineer who specialized in organic chemistry but I don't know if he's still around. There is also a Geiger counter they let you play with and a few samples you can test. You'd be surprised at some of the stuff.
http://www.atomictestingmuseum.org/index.asp
Another nice one in Las Vegas which is a bit more for the kids is the Springs Preserve. This place is dedicated to a dual cause. Firstly its there to explain the issues with the wasteful practices that greatly stress our fresh water supplies along with our environment. Secondly it acts as a educational tool to explain the different aspects of living in the Mojave Desert. It has a small zoo with desert wildlife along with some interesting exhibits. My favorite is the flash flood exhibit that tries to explain the dangers of how fast some of these flood zones can get water all over them.
http://www.springspreserve.org/
The last places I could suggest would be the nice outdoorsey areas. Those would be Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire, and Lake Mead.
Now as for northern Nevada you'll want to head out to Reno and Virginia city. In Reno is the University of Nevada Reno Mackay School of Mines Rock Museum with tons of very nice samples of various rocks. They even have a piece of petrified wood with opals embedded in the wood. Downstairs they have a beautiful collection of Silverware, all the way upstairs are a few exhibits about mining and fossils. In the middle which is the main level has all the rocks and crystals.
Virginia City itself if a living museum very worth a look to get that historical cowboy town feeling. Think about bonanza the tv show while you're there (note the map found on the show is very very wrong). Stop by the newspaper where Mark Twain used to write for. He also drew much of his inspiration for "Roughing It" there.
I hope you enjoy your field trip of America.
-Matt
Montana besides Yellowstone and Glacier Parks we have egg mountain and tons of Dino dig sites you can Goldpan for garnets and gold if you see mt Rushmore it's a mere 8 hr drive (distance is relative in MT). The museum of the Rockies in Bozeman houses the scientists Responsible for Jurassic park
I like fast flying things. And you gotta cross the USA somewhere. If it happens to be through Ohio I would suggest the Air Force Museum in Dayton. They have the XB-70 Valkrie there.
If you take a more Southern route, go by the Marshall Space Flight Center. They got a great space museum including a Saturn 5, a SR-71, and a Space Shuttle.
And lastly, on the West Coast there is a little known gem of a museum that should be seen. The Hiller Aviation Museum. They have America's entry into the supersonic transport field from the 1960s. Its the Boeing SST. They also have some other great aviation technology on display.
You're giving advice to someone you've never met about what his girlfriend, who you've also never met, will like to do on vacation.
This comment sums up Slashdot so well: Complete arrogance married to utter ignorance.
http://www.nps.gov/edis/index.htm
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In New Jersey there is a National Park dedicated to Thomas Edison the inventor. http://www.nps.gov/edis/index.htm It is highly recommended!
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Another cool spot on the east coast: Edison's lab. It's like a journey back in time to the beginning of modern technology: http://www.nps.gov/edis/index.htm
Is also wonderful.
http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/AboutUs/tour.html
Los Alamos National Lab is in new mexico. Not much to see at the lab but rather the bradbury Science Museum there is what you want to see.
The US Naval Observatory in Washington DC is worth a visit. It is one of the oldest official scientific establishments in the United States, and is home to he DoD's time keeping and positioning systems, including the master clocks for the GPS constellation. Note that you'll have to register for visiting fairly far in advance, as the site is also the home of the Vice President.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Yes! I single handedly* wrote all those tiresome gf-less nerd posts!
* don't ask what the other hand was doing...
What about Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA? As a bonus, there's the GooglePlex too.
The National Cryptologic Museum in the Baltimore/Annapolis area is a pretty cool site to see. I remember going there in high school... I also remember being one of the very few kids who enjoyed it, so it must be geeky!
The National Center for Atmospheric Research, known as NCAR: http://ncar.ucar.edu/ Located in beautiful Boulder, CO, the Super Computer BlueFire http://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/docs/bluefire-user-guide is a great attraction if they let you go inside, but you can still see it outside the glass. Once you finish there, you can see all the great architecture by I.M. Pei (IIRC), and see awesome weather results like a tornado tube and understand all the different clouds, etc.
The McDonald Observatory is way out in the middle of nowhere by design, so it might not seem worth hitting, but you shouldn't miss it. Placed at the highest point on the Texas highway system in the clear desert air and in a black-out zone where they keep people from 20 miles around from having lights on at night, you'll reliably see the best stars in the continental US. Come to a star party, and they have half a dozen telescopes set up on major sky sites 3 nights a week. A few times a year, you can view through either the 107 inch, 82 inch, or 36 inch research telescopes. Come during the day to tour the 433 inch telescope, one of the largest in the world. If you can, stay at the inexpensive Astronomer's Lodge and hang out with the astronomers doing research there.
I heard about this through my mother (a former high-school English teacher) and took several days out of vacation (we live in Chicago) to travel there with my wife (an HR exec). Both of them thought it was fantastically worthwhile, so imagine how good it was for science geeks like us.
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
"SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is home to a two-mile linear accelerator—the longest in the world. Originally a particle physics research center, SLAC is now a multipurpose laboratory for astrophysics, photon science, accelerator and particle physics research. Six scientists have been awarded the Nobel Prize for work carried out at SLAC and the future of the laboratory promises to be just as extraordinary."
http://www6.slac.stanford.edu/maps_directions.aspx
We cannot solve problems with the same thinking that got us there - A Einstein(paraphrased)
If you have never heard of "Hit and miss" engines, get ready for an awesome trip into the past. Hit and miss engines were some of the first engines ever used, and are very fun to watch run since they are mostly open engines with all moving parts visible. Check out www.coolspringpowermuseum.org/ for more information. (This is in Cool Spring, PA) Enjoy!
Both awesome suggestions, the newer Dulles Air and Space is really nicely designed and a huge open space.
If you have an aviation angle I also suggest trying to see the ONLY XB-70 (valkyrie) remaining at
National Museum of the United States Air Force.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,
Dayton, Ohio
This is an aircraft with similar(afaik) performance to the SR-71, but with an entirely different structure, it's landing gear are so long that you could walk underneath it's fuselage. It is just really impressive, when I went (~20yrs ago it was outside). If you are just making a quick stop, that by itself is worth the peek and dash,... but they also have some other cool stuff like a SR-71 and a Convair B-58 Hustler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_the_United_States_Air_Force
Cosmosphere, hutchison, ks. They have an sr71, replica Bell x1, more on xplanes. Its cool.
At Lawrence Livermore Labs in California.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/101277-inside-californias-star-power-fusion-facility
It would be on my list.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
You can see the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory) and get a tour just outside of Richland WA. It has lasers and enormous vacuums and supercomputers. Also, it's right next to the Hanford reservation, home to a gigantic nuclear cleanup operation. You can get on the list for tours of it if you're lucky, or you can see the CREHST museum. Also, at PNNL is the EMSL building, which houses a supercomputer that sometimes makes the top 100 list each year. That's all within a few miles of Richland, WA. If you drive north a couple hours, you can tour Grand Coulee dam, which is pretty amazing. Then if you head west to Seattle, there's the Boeing museum.
Be sure to call places to see what is open to public. Many places that essentially had open access have clamped down on visitors.
As for recommendations, what to see depends on what you're really interested. Any of the Smithsonian exhibits and the Ester-Hazy at Dulles are great for aerospace or industry buffs.
Most NASA sites have museums; even better if you know someone who works there and can give you a behind the scenes tour.
As a side note, there are also interesting things beyond the usual in most cities - Chicago has some of the world's greatest architecture as well as the best pizza anywhere.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
We went to the VLA this summer on a 4 week driving trip from Canada. Very cool, though the array was in the "D" configuration, which meant it was spread out over miles and miles and less cool to photograph. You do get to walk right up to one of the radio telescopes though.
Just a hint, the road signage for the VLA is very difficult to see. Watch all signs like a hawk. It's a bit further West than we thought it was. If you find yourself getting too close to the western mountain range turn back (signage was easier driving westwards anyways).
Also, New Mexico is awesome, and Santa Fe is incredible... we stayed there for 3 days and it was a great place to make a base camp and explore other places in northern-Central New Mexico (including Taos - cultural, not sciency).
The only other sciencey thing we did while there was go to the (free admission) (not Ray) "Bradbury Science Museum" in Los Alamos. If you love the bomb, I mean *really* love it, it's the place for you. We all found it exceptionally creepy.
Get this book... it's very good.
http://www.geekatlas.com/
You may also know the author, John Graham-Cumming, as the guy who got the British government to apologize for their persecution of Alan Turing.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
in Virginia; explain to me how that thing got there.
National Museum of the United States Air Force also has a virtual through "street view" tour if you want to preview what is there... You can spot the XB-70 in the R&D section, but it is no longer outside : (
http://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/full/tour-std.html
If you add the word "fiction" to science, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Museum in Seattle is pretty awesome. Otherwise, consider trying to catch a meteor shower - they're often better-documented re: ideal viewing times in the US.
Since you're planning on hitting the VLA anyway, I highly recommend going north up to Los Alamos to check out the Bradbury Science Museum. http://www.lanl.gov/museum/index.shtml. It's very well done and highly entertaining.
Also, if you time your trip right (you don't say exactly when you'll be in the area), you could visit the Trinity Test Site: http://www.atomictourist.com/trinity.htm. They're open on the first saturday of April.
Neil
Depending on your route, it might make sense to either visit LIGO Livingston Observatory in Louisiana or LIGO Hanford Observatory in Washington state. The former is preferable because of their cool "science education center", but both of these facilities have public outreach staffs and hold public events regularly. Call ahead and ask about the public tour schedule. They are in the middle of a huge upgrade and their instruments are not in operation, but I think it's still worth your time.
The Air Force Museum at Wright Patt Air Force Base in Dayton is quite good.
Most interesting, is the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky. The science is crap. The people are fascinating. Provided you don't have kids with you, it is a great place to watch how far folks will go to make belief and facts match. I do believe that they are all well-intentioned, but the place really disturbs me as it is designed to appeal to impressionable children complete with cute dinosaurs to play with. It is probably the most interesting place I have ever been in my life.
It is beyond belief. If I didn't know to the contrary, I would have thought the place was built buy some great parody artists.
The Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA. You need to book in advance, but they do lab-wide tours for the public at least a few times a week. Too bad you just missed seeing MSL in the clean room! Was a real sight to see a few months ago. The rest of the Lab is still very cool -- the museum alone is worth it.
"Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker."
If you're in the SF bay area and want to see where all the geeks get their toys you can't pass up the Foothill College electronics swap meet that happens once each month (I don't recall the exact schedule, you'll have to look it up). You'll find everything imaginable there, and some things you couldn't have imagined.
I hear there are some awesome surplus shops around Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico, too, where you can buy cool missile parts, etc. While you're there stop by Roswell and buy some of the UFO souvenir junk they sell so much of. White Sands national monument is worth stopping to take some pictures of, too.
Not really a sight to see, but a fun place with a lot of cool hands on science. Possibly worth the visit.
http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/museum/
Current science, science history, and the area is quite nice as well.
On a little different note along I-80 in Nebraska there is the Strategic Air and Space Museum between Lincoln, NE and Omaha, NE.
The SR-71 in the lobby gives you a hint as to the scale and breadth of displays at this place and is a great way to break up the drive across Nebraska and Iowa.
A great abundance of things to see and do in addition to the commercial money-grabbers. Mount Wilson Observatory and the Palomar Observatory are worthwhile. There are also great architectural examples: Green and Green, Frank Lloyd Wright, Parkinson Brothers and much Art Deco. Regrettably, Shuttle Endeavor won't be ready for display until probably 2013. We have several outstanding museums, also. Griffith Park and the Observatory are fascinating, too. I'll not mention the obvious studio tours and other film and television attractions. Enjoy us!
This was really awesome to see:
http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/
If you're near D.C./Baltimore at all the NSA runs the National Cryptographic Museum at Fort Meade. It doesn't get any geekier than that. The VLA is a lot of fun as well. It's a great picnic spot. (But if you're trekking across NM there's also White Sands Nat. Mon. And the Southeast corner of the state has a couple of real 'gems'- Roswell, where you can get your LGM fix and Carlsbad Caverns where you can go hiking for miles underground in the most beautiful setting you can imagine!) Oh and if you're in Arizona at all check out the Meteor Crater! It's off I-40 near WInslow...
Don't miss the La brea tar pits. Awesome.
You can also do an 8-hour tour of the Nevada Test Site: http://www.atomictourist.com/nts.htm
I love my city. 3
If you have a girlfriend you're not really geeky, you're just a poser.
A couple of my favorites are McDonald Observatory and Johnson Space Center
In order east to west:
Corning museum of glass - great combo of science, history, and art (Corning ny)
Wright Patterson air force museum (outside Dayton oh)
OK city cowboy museum - another great combo of science, art, history - home of worlds largest barbed-wire collection
Kansas city WW1 museum- a highly interactive modern museum
Of course there are many more, but these are my favs
Keeping
After all the acid I did over the years you would think I would have gotten at least one, teensy little flashback. But nooooooo!
Then I went to the CHM and they almost had to carry me out on a stretcher. I went into a fugue state and got my hand slapped by a docent for touching the mouse of the Xerox Alto. It was like 30 years hadn't passed and I just knew there were people out there, waiting in the maze, peeking around the corners like cockroaches.
The card readers, ginormous disk drives, core memory, video games, etc., etc. -- it all combined to warp space and time. I had thought 2 hours would be enough (my wife was shopping) ... ha! Ten hours wouldn't be enough! Go for the Super Geek package and you get the entrance fee + a really geeky black/white T-shirt with CHM spelled out in binary-ASCII (I'm wearing it as I type this).
Is it really possible that in 80 posts, no one has suggested The Geek Atlas?
It's a book of 128 geeky sites to visit, with background stories and science discussions for each one, as well as the normal location and logistic information.
There's also a website with maps and other content, as well as an iOS app that will give you info on the places closest to you and other handy reference info.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Biosphere II, north of Tuson Arizona. considered by the press to be kind of a giant sad failure, considered by myself to be a radical experiment in ecological engineering. The result of the test run was not what they expected, but science is not about what you were expecting. Arcosanti, outside Mayer, Arizona. Experiment by Paolo Soleri in urban engineering, arcologies.
EMRT at NMT has periodic tours. they do explosives research and often appear in mythbusters
once a year ground zero for the first nuclear explosion is opened up. that is close to nmt so you could hit all 3 in one go (vla emrt bomb site)
If you're in new mexico, theres the new Spaceport and the national nuclear history museum in Albuquerque
yeah, very good stuff.
Unfortunately, mostly shows the heights that the US Aerospace/physics programs have fallen from.
Too bad they never built the Super Conducting Super Collider down in TX, sunk in a couple of billion and then dropped it.
And now even the Chinese have Man-in-space capability, the US has to take the Soyuz bus at 40+mil a ticket.
Very Sad.
If you would have told me back in 1970 that this would be the state of affairs in 2011, I would have thought you were crazy.
Not science, but devil's tower is interesting if you are driving through... (think close encounters...)
The Exploratorium in San Francisco
The US Air Force Museum (free and awesome. schedule at least one day. Mendelsons surplus is in dayton too)
The Smithsonian (include air and space)
Mamoth Cave
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I did not want to leave when I was there years ago. A must see.
Get "The Geek Atlas" by John Graham-Cumming. 128 places where Science and Technology Come Alive. I believe Slashdot have mentioned this before.
Sorry, I know you are asking for sights in the U.S., but I still think one of the geekiest places in the world to be is the Prime Meridian, that passes through the Greenwich Royal Observatory in downtown London. I visited London twice, but it only occurred to me before the second visit that Greenwich was pretty much the center of our human universe, because all people around the world measure longitude and time of day in relation to the Prime Meridian.
In these days where Geographical Information Systems are becoming ever more integral part of our daily lives with a GPS in every pocket, it feels truly privileged to have actually visited the zero point of reference for all these measurements.
In the US I would recommend Kennedy Space Center and the Palo Alto research facility (PARC).
Here is a small list (top of my head) of what I did on a similar trip.
It is mostly based on a book on National Parks. Get a “one year all parks pass” at the first park and grab the map with park interest description at the entrances.
- Barringer Meteor Crater
- Petrified Forest national park.Impresive but small.
- White sand national monument (national park). Go for an hour walk with food and plenty of water.
- Grand Canyon (with Zion and Bryne canyons nearby)
- Carlsbad cavern (national park) - don't miss the evening bat fly-off
- Death valley.
- Very Large Array.
All down south, as it was April and I sleep either in a tent or in my car, so warm weather was a must.
Have a great trip.
- Brookhaven National Labs have several weekends of Open House in the Summer - Brookhaven, Long Island
http://www.bnl.gov/community/summer_sunday.asp
- Submarine Force Museum - New London, Groton, Connecticut
http://www.ussnautilus.org/
- Anthracite Museum and Coal Mine Tour - Scranton, Pennsylvania
http://www.anthracitemuseum.org/index.htm
- Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour - FANTASTIC!!!
http://www.lackawannacounty.org/attractions_coal.asp
- Harry Houdini Museum - Scranton, Pennsylvania
- Steamtown USA
http://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm
- Promitory Utah - Transcontinental Railroad
http://www.nps.gov/gosp/index.htm
- Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico - Especially in Summer for BATS
http://www.nps.gov/cave/index.htm
Women are Aliens. My wife can spend 3 hours in the Linen Department at Sears. Nuff said.
"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
When I was a child, my father would take me to check out hydro-electric dams. They are fascinating places really, with the loud whir of the turbines and all the old school equipment. I have no idea if they are still open to the public now with all those terrorists about.
LS
The Green Bank Telescope is unbelievably large, taller (and much wider) than the Statue of Liberty. In fact, it's the world's largest steerable radio telescope and the world's largest land-based movable structure.
You can get tours of, the Green Bank Telescope, and some other radio telescopes at the Green Bank Science Center (http://www.nrao.edu/index.php/learn/gbsc) It's in a lovely mountainous area in West Virginia. Don't expect to climb on the telescope or walk on the telescope's surface, but definitely worth seeing.
And please, remember to turn off your cell phones!
Don't get laid? How many girls has Leonard bedded? Howard has a girlfriend. Even a guy who is mute like Raj has bedded at least two girls over the last few years...
Je ne parle pas francais.
This book is made for geek travellers just like you. You don't have to buy the book, just look up the United States section in the Table of Contents.
The Geek Atlas
If you do decide to buy the book, it gives you some history about each destination.
It's creation science (one of the previous words don't belong)...
Je ne parle pas francais.
Can i cum on your girlfriend's tits?
The person asking did not specify what geeky means, so this covers a number of disciplines:
NSA museum in Maryland.
Smithsonian air/space museum in DC. The Enterprise is there.
The meteor crater in Arizona
Mt. Saint Helens in Washington state, if you like volcanology and natural sciences.
If you're into Geology/Vocanolgy Yellowstone of course.
Don't forget the Trinity site. It's only open for short periods so plan carefully.
Fields Science museum in Chicago.
There's actually a visitor center for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository in Nevada. I heard years ago they have the reports and scientific papers available onsite for review by the general public. You can practice reading journal articles, which only a true geek (or possibly a nerd) would do.
While in Nevada you might try infiltrating Area 51. Though I personally consider it a bad idea. Signs with the words "use of deadly force authorized" tend to scare me.
Speaking of use of deadly force; Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska (and probably other areas in the region) are dotted with nuclear missile silos. You might want to get on a back road and drive past one. You'll then know what a modern weapon of mass destruction looks like. I've worked around them and they are ugly. Both in terms of aesthetics and for what they represent.
If in Colorado, take as many brewery tours as possible. The area from Denver north to the Colorado state line is often called "The Napa Valley of Beer". You'll see some nice high tech brewing equipment and can learn about the science behind beer. The beer of course is secondary to geeking out.
Stop off in the Powder River basin in Wyoming and take a tour of an open pit coal mine. It's close to Devil's Tower, which someone else mentioned. No modern technology operates without electricity and you will then understand where the power for many server farms come from.
Speaking of power, swing by a wind farm.
I've always wanted to tour around New England visiting all the places HP Lovecraft lived. Also possibly Poe's residences.
There's a few ideas off the top of my head.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
NASA space museum! especially the 2-person flight simulator!
Go have a look at the Spruce Goose (and an SR71 Blackbird, a few space capsules, and a bunch of other interesting goodies) at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville OR.
I would suggest Sunspot, NM. It is near Cloudcroft, up in the mountains. It is a Solar Lab, and you can find them online. In the middle of the summer, after dealing with the heat, the area is a nice place to be for a few hours.
Go see the biggest meteorite out near Barstow.
Then go meteroite hunting out in the Lucerne Dry Lake Bed.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
Bakken Library
Generally , recent volcanoes. Lava tree casts, lava tubes etc ...
John Day Fossil beds
Fort Rock and Fort Rock Caves ( Oldest human evidence in N. America , predates Clovis.)
Weird places like 'Hole in the Ground', 'Crack in the Ground', and Newberry Crater (obsidian flows).
and further afield "The Lightning Field" in New Mexico
If you're going through CO, call ahead and get yourself approved for the NIST tour in Boulder, CO. You have to give them your SSNs and some other info a week or two in advance so they can reassure themselves you're not terrorists, but the tour is free, and it is a weights-and-measures geek's fantasy. You can meet the US's atomic clock!
I'd recommend taking the tour of the first nuclear reactor to provide power for public use, "Experimental Breeder Reactor number one" in Idaho.I toured it a couple of years ago, and it's one of the few places you can see an actual reactor core, containment vessel, or reactor control room, especially one of the first ones. Check out http://www.kmvt.com/news/local/122875114.html
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank, West Virginia.
http://www.nrao.edu/
The Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in California.
I've never been there myself, but it is truly a wonder of
scientific achievements, including Nobel prizes.
http://www.afspacemuseum.org/
The Air Force Space and Missile Museum
Hoover Dam (AZ/NV border) is a great stop. It's a fascinating marvel of engineering. +1 for corny guides. They put on the best dam tour you will ever see.
Not sure what that is. Edisons Lab - the one where they invented the lightbulb and phonograph - are physically standing at Greenfield Village in Dearborn Michigan, along with the Write Brothers home and bicycle shop. These are not reproductions, they are the real deal bought and transported along with many other historic homes and small buildings which you can go inside. This is right next to the Henry Ford Museum, which is poorly named - it's mainly a history of the industrial revolution in America. Probably an hour north of I-80 if you're going east/west. All of your other stops will be far more modern. It's nice to see the types of places tech was developed 100 years ago.
The original Write Flyer is in the museum on the Mall. I have not been to the Dulles one, so I can't say which contains more awesomeness ;-)
You can see planetaria and museums anywhere, but only the United States has this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Museum
I was going to say the same thing. Here's the official site:
http://www.wsmr.army.mil/PAO/Trinity/Pages/default.aspx
Space Camp (Huntsville, Alabama).
Meteor Crater (Winslow, Arizona).
John F. Kennedy Space Centre (Merritt Island, Florida).
Mount St. Helens (Skamania County, Washington).
Griffith Observatory (Los Angeles, California).
Sukapak Mountain Lookout (Dalton Highway, Mile Marker 194).
Fleischmann Planetarium (Reno, Nevada).
Gunnison National Forest (Colorado).
North Pole (Alaska, not the ACTUAL North Pole!).
Just a few randoms from my list of "shit to do when I eventually get over there". There's more, but I'm afraid of hitting a character limit.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Since the OP is already going to be in New Mexico, SE of the radio telescope is the Apache Point Observatory and the Sunspot Solar Observatory. The former has daylight-only grounds access, the latter has a visitor's center that includes information on Apache Point. APO has a 3.5 meter and 2.5 meter telescopes, plus two dinky 1 and 0.75 meter scopes. Sunspot has a telescope that floats on a bearing of mercury, I call it the iceberg telescope as it extends underground a considerable distance. Beware the elk: lots of cars get damaged up there every year. I can recommend some restaurants if you come down there. There's also some geocaching opportunities in the area.
Next to Alamogordo, the town nearest Apache Point/Sunspot, is the White Sands National Monument. And if you come on the first Saturday of April or October, the Trinity Site is open to the public. In Alamogordo is the New Mexico Space History Museum, which has a Saturn 5 stage and an Apollo capsule that was planned to be used to test the capsule emergency escape rocket, it also has a tribute to HAM the space chimp.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
At the base of the Space Needle is the Science Fiction Museum and the Experience Music Project, both pet projects of Paul Allen and both pretty cool. EMP is largely based around Jimi Hendrix and has some pretty cool stuff in it. No photography in the Sci Fi museum, at least as of when I was there in 08.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Come on down to Nelson, New Zealand, and visit the Ernest Rutherford Birthplace memorial in Brightwater. It's a very interesting recognition for the man who is credited with discovering atomic nuclei. Afterwards you can enjoy some truly beautiful scenery, walks, and boating experiences in nearby National Parks.
The Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas is worth a visit. Great museum of spacecraft and astro/aero artifacts.
The Atomic Testing Museum in Vegas is really cool. We went there while in town for a weeklong class and it was almost deserted. There was an older man who was kind of following us around while we walked through the museum. After seeing him interviewed on one of the videos in the museum, we found out he was present for almost every test at the Nevada Test Site, I believe he's seen more nuclear explosions than any other living person. Fascinating guy to talk to, and lots of cool stuff to see there.
The Mackinac Bridge between Michigan's lower and upper peninsulas. The setting of this big, tall engineering marvel in the middle of a wild, flat environment is amazing. If you go up that way, check out the "Soo" (Sault St. Marie) naval locks between Lake Superior and Lake Huron.
These are more engineering than scientific marvels - but if you're generous with your science (and have the time to detour 4 hours north of the Ohio/Michigan border), you should be pleased.
Just don't drive a Yugo over that bridge in the fall.
if you happen to go that way.
Lick's Observatory, Standford University (SLAC anyone?) Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Mystery Spot
If you are in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, I would recommend the Carnegie Science Center and the Roboworld exhibit.
http://www.carnegiesciencecenter.org/roboworld/
Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/
...one should check out the Henry Ford Museum near Detroit, Michigan.
I agree on the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum -- Don't try to park on the mall; go to an underground lot in town a few blocks north (there are many) and cab or walk to the mall.
The VLA in New Mexico is a good stop, but you should plan ahead for a full guided tour; the self-guided tour is not worth the trip unless you are already in the area.
Agree on Meteor Crater in Arizona; this tends to put things into perspective.
At one point known as the Vintage Telephone Equipment Museum in Seattle. Depends on how much you want some telephone history. (And they have links to a group out of Denver if you want to do a virtual tour on their contact us page)
Went there about 16 years ago when I was in elementary school. Has been on my list of places to revisit. At that time, a lot of the people working there were former telephone company employees and actually saw lots of the equipment when it was in active use. (Actually their volunteer page seems to suggest that almost everyone was a former telco employee)
They seem to only be open one day a week.
Any way: Link
Since you will be traveling through New Mexico for the VLA:
1) Sunspot, otherwise known as the National Solar Observatory/Sacramento Peak (http://nsosp.nso.edu/)
2) New Mexico Museum of Space History, Alamogordo, NM (http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/)
3) Bradbury Science Museum, Los Alamos, NM (http://www.lanl.gov/museum/index.shtml) Some beautiful country in the area, plus Taos and Santa Fe!
4) Meteor Crater, AZ (http://www.meteorcrater.com/)
5) Petrified Forest National Park, AZ (http://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm)
there are many more exciting sights in and around New Mexico.
Try to get into the computer science lab at MIT.
Atlas Obscura has lots of interesting places worldwide, but you can search by country etc. http://atlasobscura.com/globe/north-america/united-states I'd recommend visiting the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas http://www.atomictestingmuseum.org/ While in Vegas we meant to visit the Neon Museum, but never made it http://www.neonmuseum.org/ (Think it's also known as the Neon Boneyard) Other places I'd like to visit are the Sedan Crater, Nevada and the Trinity test site in New Mexico. Also, Griffiths Observatory in LA http://www.griffithobs.org/ which I think has a giant Tesla coil. California Academy of Sciences http://www.calacademy.org/ in SF appeals to me, after seeing it on the Discovery channel. Cheers, Phil UK
Just outside the main gates of the NSA compound. http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/museum/ Very cool stuff.
Owens Valley Radio Observatory.
http://www.optcorp.com/edu/articleDetailEDU.aspx?aid=604
The Henry Ford in Dearborn MI. Best collection of cars, including the one Kennedy was assassinated in. The Wright brothers bicycle shop, Henry bought it and moved it to Greenfield Village, the outdoor section of the Henry Ford. Edison's Menlo Park workshops and facilities... now in Greenfield Village. Other cool stuff includes: the chair from the Ford Museum that Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot, Westminster Fuller's Dymaxion house, a combination oil and coal fired steam generator the size of a house, cars, locomotives, a working roundhouse and turntable, an old single power source belt driven machine shop. Best technology museum in the United States.
This is where Gregor Mendel worked on genetics.
Another interesting place would be the site of the Trinity Nuclear Tests.
This is the first reference point of the Struve Geodetic Arc which was the first accurate measurement of a meridian. If you are really adventurous you will visit all the other points on the arc.
Where Dmitri Mendeleev went to university, later taught, and ultimately developed the periodic table of the elements.
There used to be a map of above-ground nuclear test sites on Google earth. Bring some lead underwear, just to be safe.
There are a number of things in Minnesota to see: As mentioned previously the big ball of twine.
The Kensington runestone museum in Alexandria, MN. Not really science, but interesting from a history buff perspective
The Soudan underground mine state park which is part of the MINOS experiment. Near Tower MN
The Hull Rust Mine which is the worlds largest Iron ore mine. Worth seeing if you like big machines. It is just outside of Hibbing, MN
If you want to see some historical technology things the I would suggest the Nowthen Threshing show which has lots early tractors (steam, diesel, kerosene, gasoline), and stationary engines. The start up of the old Fairbanks engine is impressive: 2 stroke, 5 cylinders, 13,000+ cubic inches, 250HP, and shakes the whole building and ground. They also have an operational sawmill, blacksmithing, and threshing demo. Also you can see some impressive fully functional home built miniatures of the large equipment. It is in Nowthen, MN
Time to offend someone