NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Explore the Earth, the moon and Mars with NASA researchers. See the universe through the eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope and chat with Galileo, the father of modern astronomy.

A successful NASA flight test Monday demonstrated how a spacecraft returning to Earth can use an inflatable heat shield to slow and protect itself as it enters the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

Like a candle on a cake, the crew module and launch abort system that Langley helped create now sit atop the Ares I-X flight-test launch vehicle.

Debbie Murray spends most of her time helping others. When she isn't guiding Langley's summer students, she volunteers for the Red Cross.

If it's Thursday, then John Hefner is at the Lackey Free Family Medicine Clinic in Yorktown.

"I'm the bouncer," he says, laughing from behind his desk in Building 1244.

In fact...

Karen Steele and her husband, Bill Pardue, prefer to be "doers" and not just "sayers." They have made themselves living examples for years by helping just about anywhere their help was needed.

The spirit of volunteerism is a marriage of two periods in Walt Baskin's life. One provided material for the show, the other showed a sense of reward that comes from helping the children that see it.<...