NASA Ames Research Center, California

NASA's Ames site is an aerospace research and development installation, located at the southwest end of the San Francisco Bay in Silicon Valley, amid a cluster of similar enterprises, including Lockheed's Missile and Space division. Facilities at Ames include several wind tunnels, including the largest one in the world; Pleiades, one of the world's fastest supercomputers; the Ames Arc Jet Complex, used to simulate high-altitude flight conditions; and the Hypervelocity Free-Flight Range, used to study the aerodynamic and structural characteristics of aeroballistic models. Many of the facilities from the closed down Moffett Naval Air Station are now managed by Ames, including the Moffett Federal Airfield, and the large airship hangars, built during WWII, which have been leased to Google for the next 60 years. Also on site is the NASA Ames Visitor Center, a free self-guided tour, which contains a number of exhibits and artifacts relevant to research activities conducted at Ames, such as a real moon rock collected by the crew of Apollo 15, a shuttle cockpit simulator, and an immersive theater which projects simulated space flights.