Virginia Air & Space Science Center

The official visitor center for NASA Langley Research Center and Langley Air Force Base — which matters, because neither is open to the public and this is the only way to see what came out of them.

Langley opened in 1917 as America's first civilian aeronautical laboratory, built the world's largest wind tunnel in 1934, tested nearly every US military aircraft of the Second World War, and then trained the Mercury and Apollo astronauts on a lunar landing rig that simulated one-sixth gravity. It is also where the Black women mathematicians of Hidden Figures worked as human computers from the 1940s. The centrepiece here is the Apollo 12 command module, which flew to the Moon and back; around it hang three decades of aircraft, plus a Mars lander, moon rocks and a large hands-on area for children.

Practical: on the Hampton River downtown, open daily except some Mondays, around $17 with an IMAX theatre on site. Two hours. Check opening days before planning around it — hours have varied in recent years.