The astronauts were NASA Langley’s most famous residents, but in the late 1970s a new group arrived (for one of the facility’s more terrestrial missions) who drew some attention for their unique task. The Swain family — parents Charles and Elaine, and teen children Carol and Chuck — was recruited from Florida to spend one full year living in a prototype NASA Technology Utilization House, or Tech House, constructed amid the much more imposing structures on the grounds of the research center.
It was an attempt by NASA to show that space exploration had practical purposes on Earth — how technology developed for rocket flights could also be applied in more mundane ways. In this instance, the goal was to show that by using new technology developed at NASA, American homes could be constructed in a way that would cut energy consumption in half.
It wasn’t the stuff of national headlines, but technical publications were fascinated by the project. Rather than placing engineers or technicians in the home, NASA proved its point by selecting a “typical” family.
“That was the point of the experiment,” Charles Swain, a college professor, told Popular Mechanics in 1979. “To see if an average middle-class family — people who weren’t scientific or technical — could live in this house and save energy.”
Swain told the magazine that he and his family were interested in furthering the cause of ecology and that his 12-year-old son was “all excited to be right in there with all that space stuff.”
The house made early use of solar panels and had a computer system that monitored and modified room temperatures as needed. A large tank below the house collected water from the tubs and sinks, and then filtered and recycled it to flush toilets. The fireplace had an innovative design that minimized energy lost up the chimney.
The Swains were temporary residents, and they returned to Florida after their year in the Tech House. When they went home, they fitted their house with Tech House-inspired horizontal windows, which formed a tighter, more energy-efficient seal than traditional vertical ones.
After the Swains moved out, the Tech House remained standing and was available for public tours — even after a graduate student moved in with his wife and kids. About a year later, it was dismantled.
In 1971, NASA Langley Research Center added a visitor center to showcase some of the facility’s work to the curious public. The building had 8,000 square feet of exhibit space, and the proud staff members volunteered to construct the rotating exhibits and to serve as docents leading tours of the welcome center.
The building also had a theater that could seat 100, perfect for screening NASA films and talks by researchers. School groups were regular guests; at the time, the City of Hampton used a London-style double-decker bus to give tours of the city, and Langley’s visitor center was always one of the most popular stops.
At the time, the general public could come onto the NASA Langley campus with little more than a brief stop at the front gate. With today’s strict security measures, guests would not be allowed to drive or walk around the grounds to look for the visitor center — though Langley does host an open house for the public every five years or so.
The visitor center was rendered obsolete in 1992, when the Virginia Air and Space Center opened about 6 miles away in downtown Hampton and took on that role.
The original visitor center still stands, though it was repurposed for use as a conference facility.
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