Looking for an incredible museum to visit during your Virginia Beach vacation? The Virginia Air and Space Center is the perfect attraction if you have a love of flying, space, and spacecraft. It’s great for every member of your family.

How far is The Virginia Air and Space Center from Virginia Beach?

Traffic permitting, it’s approximately half an hour away from the beach. You would take I64W past the Hampton Roads bridge-tunnel. It’s located in Downtown Hampton on the banks of the Hampton River next to the marina.

The Virginia Air and Space Center is easy to spot with its unusual wave like shape and its huge glass windows. There are a couple of parking garages across the road and plenty of crosswalks that allow you to walk to the center safely. After paying the admission fee we were free to walk around the museum and the visiting exhibits.The Air and Space Center

The permanent exhibits were very good, the interactive displays will keep both adults and children amused. My favorite three exhibits were the trip in a space craft to Mars, the B24 Liberator bombing expedition and taking the controls of a fighter jet.

The Virginia Air and Space Center had a variety of air and space craft, several of these hung above you whilst you walk around the ground floor. There are viewing platforms that allow you to get a better look of the aircrafts. There are also plenty of information stations that tell you all about each display piece.

One of the most interesting exhibits for me was the Apollo 12 command module. Apollo 12 took off during a rainstorm in 1969 and was even hit by lightning shortly after take off. Apollo 12 was the second mission to land on the Moon and the sixth manned mission to fly into Space. I can’t begin to imagine how it must have felt to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere and plummet down to the landing site in the small module.

I really enjoyed my afternoon at the Virginia Air and Space Center, I thought there were plenty of exhibitions and it was good value for money.

Last edited: March 26, 2017