NASA’s visitor center at the Wallops Flight Facility is a popular destination on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, contributing to the local economy and fostering public interest in space travel and the quest for a greater understanding of our universe.
The Hampton Roads delegation to Congress and the General Assembly should continue lobbying the Trump administration and Republican leaders to abandon a short-sighted plan to close the visitor center in a cost-cutting move.
Earlier this month, employees at Wallops received an email informing them of several facility closures scheduled for Oct. 1 at Wallops Island in Accomack County, about five miles from Chincoteague, as well as at its parent organization, the Goddard Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The flight centers will continue operating, but the visitor centers at both facilities will be shuttered, as will their respective cafeterias, a recreation center at Goddard and other buildings at the two sites.
For Accomack and Hampton Roads, the visitor center closure would be especially damaging. Last year, 41,000 people visited Wallops to learn about operations that have been underway there since the end of World War II, when it was primarily used to test rockets. Another 3,600 visitors watched rocket launches from Wallops last year.
Visitors can see a moon rock from Apollo 17, watch videos on space travel, enjoy hands-on, interactive exhibits and check out scale models of rockets, satellites and more. Special programs, including astronomy nights, serve as an excellent educational tool for people of all ages, especially budding young scientists.
Over the years, Wallops has become an important part of NASA’s mission and the site of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, established by the Virginia General Assembly in 1995 and later joined by the state of Maryland to promote commercial flight operations.
Research is also conducted at Wallops through partnerships with the U.S. Navy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies.
Wallops employs more than 1,100 people, and their presence as well as traffic to the visitor center benefits businesses on the Eastern Shore, which relies heavily on agriculture and tourism in addition to aerospace. The visitors center, opened in 1982, has become both a destination for Americans interested in space travel and a stopover for beachgoers on their way to nearby Chincoteague and the Assateague Island National Seashore.
Rep. Jen Kiggans and Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine are among officials in Washington leading opposition to closure. They — as well as Del. Rob Bloxom and Virginia Sen. Bill DeSteph at the state level — recognize the visitor center’s significance to the region and its importance to Virginia’s investment in the commercial spaceport.
As Warner explained, the visitor center “is a vital gateway between NASA’s mission and the public, drawing tens of thousands of visitors each year, inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers, and supporting the Eastern Shore’s economy.”
DeSteph highlighted Virginia’s stake in Wallops. “With the ever-increasing DoD [Department of Defense] and commercial missions, man, we got to do something to protect them and keep them there,” he told WBOC-TV on the Eastern Shore.
Kiggans points out that shutting down the visitor center doesn’t align with the proposed House budget. It also doesn’t serve the nation’s — and the Trump administration’s — stated focus on expanding commercial and government space travel, including a return to the moon and the first manned mission to Mars.
Few would argue that the federal government needs to curb spending and, at long last, address the federal deficit. But the Trump administration’s drastic cuts, many of them orchestrated by an inexperienced team at the Department of Government Efficiency, have often lacked an understanding of the painstaking investment and work on missions like those at Wallops and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.
The meager savings from closing the visitor center would not offset the damage to those missions and to the surrounding community. This efficiency move is a misfire, and the administration needs to look elsewhere.
