Virginia Peninsula

The Center for Advanced Engineering Environments (CAEE) is a department center of the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology at Old Dominion University. The center was created in 2001 to serve as a focal point for research activities pertaining to Collaborative distributed Knowledge discovery and exploitation, Interactive visual simulations, Intelligent synthesis, and advanced learning/training technologies and environments, and their application to future complex engineering systems.The activities of the center include the synergistic coupling of modeling, visual simulations, intelligent agents, multimedia and synthetic environments, human-technology interactions, computational intelligence, computational, information and collaboration technologies in the multidisciplinary analysis, sensitivity studies, optimization, design and operation of complex engineering systems. The Center is located at the Old Dominion University Peninsula Higher Education Center in Hampton, Virginia. It is located very close to Nasa's Langley Research Center.

Langley Speedway is a race track located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. Langley Speedway is a paved short track measuring 4/10 mile in length. It is one of the flattest tracks in the region with only six degrees of banking in the corners and two degrees of banking on the straights. In November 1970, it became the site of the last NASCAR Grand National Series race before the series was renamed the Winston Cup. The track is located in front of NASA's Langley Research Center on Commander Sheppherd Boulevard. The track is NASCAR sanctioned and participates in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series, which determines a national champion for the NASCAR sanctioned local tracks. The track hosts 12 divisions that alternate running during their Saturday night program: Late models, Modifieds, Virginia Racers, legends cars, Super Streets, Enduros, Grand Stocks, Super Trucks, UCARS, Pro Six, Bandoleros, and HRKC Pro Winged Champ Karts. Pre race ceremonies for the regular Saturday night events begin at approximately 7:00 PM with the first race of the night beginning about 15 minutes later. Langley also hosts Hampton Roads Kart Club races on most Sundays and some Fridays during the season, Wacky Wednesday which allows anyone with a helmet and a street legal car to participate in the time attack, burnout competition, and one on one drag races on most Wednesday nights during the season, the Langley Drift Club which helped bring drifting to the Hampton Roads’ area, and starting in 2023 Old-Dominion Region-SCCA Autocross events.

Virginia Peninsula Community College (VPCC) is a public community college with two campuses in Virginia, one in Hampton and the other in James City County. It also has two education centers The Southeast Higher Education Center in Newport News and the Williamsburg Discovery Center in Williamsburg. It is part of the Virginia Community College System. It mostly serves students living on the Peninsula region of Hampton Roads, but it also has students from other parts of southeastern Virginia. The college adopted its current name in July 2022, having formerly been known as Thomas Nelson Community College (TNCC) since its inception. The decision to rename the college was approved by the Virginia State Board for Community Colleges in September 2021.

Bridgeport Academy is an alternative school in Hampton, Virginia. Established in 2007, the school serves middle and high school students as an alternative education from regular Hampton City Public Schools.

The Battle of Big Bethel was one of the earliest land battles of the American Civil War. It took place on the Virginia Peninsula, near Newport News, on June 10, 1861. Virginia's decision to secede from the Union had been ratified by popular vote on May 23, and Confederate Col. (later Maj. Gen.) John B. Magruder was sent down the peninsula to deter any advance on the state capital Richmond by Union troops based at the well-defended post of Fort Monroe. This garrison was commanded by Maj Gen. Benjamin Butler, a former Massachusetts lawyer and politician, who established a new camp at nearby Hampton and another at Newport News. Magruder had also established two camps, within range of the Union lines, at Big Bethel and Little Bethel, as a lure to draw his opponent into a premature action. Butler took the bait, when he and an aide, Maj. Theodore Winthrop, devised a plan for a night march, followed by a dawn attack to drive the Confederates back from their bases. Butler chose not to lead the force in person, for which he was later criticized. The plan proved too complex for his poorly-trained subordinates to carry out, especially at night, and his staff had also omitted to communicate the passwords. They were trying to advance without knowledge of the layout or strength of the Confederate positions, when a friendly fire incident gave away their own. The commander in the field, Massachusetts militia Gen. Ebenezer Peirce, received most of the blame for the failed operation. The Union forces suffered 76 casualties, with 18 killed, including Maj. Winthrop and Lt. John T. Greble, the first regular army officer killed in the war. The Confederates suffered only eight casualties, with one killed. Although Magruder subsequently withdrew to Yorktown and his defensive line along the Warwick River, he had won a propaganda victory and local Union forces attempted no further significant advance until the Peninsula Campaign of 1862. While small in comparison to many later battles, Big Bethel attracted exaggerated importance because of the general feeling that the war would soon be over. The engagement was also known as the Battle of Bethel Church or Great Bethel.

The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley), located in Hampton, Virginia near the Chesapeake Bay front of Langley Air Force Base, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. LaRC has focused primarily on aeronautical research but has also tested space hardware such as the Apollo Lunar Module. In addition, many of the earliest high-profile space missions were planned and designed on-site. Langley was also considered a potential site for NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center prior to the eventual selection of Houston, Texas.Established in 1917 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the research center devotes two-thirds of its programs to aeronautics and the rest to space. LaRC researchers use more than 40 wind tunnels to study and improve aircraft and spacecraft safety, performance, and efficiency. Between 1958 and 1963, when NASA (the successor agency to NACA) started Project Mercury, LaRC served as the main office of the Space Task Group. In September 2019, after previously serving as associate director and deputy director, Clayton P. Turner was appointed director of NASA Langley.

The Lunar Landing Research Facility was an area at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia that was used to simulate Apollo Moon landings with a mock Lunar Module powered by a small rocket motor suspended from a crane over a simulated lunar landscape. Completed in 1965 at a cost of $3.5 million, the facility was used by 24 astronauts, including Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, to practice solving piloting problems they would encounter in the last 150 feet (46 m) of descent to the surface of the Moon.The structure was used to facilitate "flying" a full-scale Lunar Excursion Module Simulator (LEMS). The LEMS was suspended from a 200-foot (61 m)-tall, 400-foot (120 m)-long A-frame gantry by an overhead bridge crane. The LEMS is now on display at the Virginia Air and Space Center.

The Rendezvous Docking Simulator, also known as the Real-Time Dynamic Simulator, is a simulator at the Langley Research Center. It was constructed for the Gemini program in Building 1244 and it became operational in June 1963 at a cost of $320,000 and later reconfigured for the Apollo program. The simulator consists of a gantry frame, with an overhead carriage from which test craft were suspended by cables. A gimbal was powered hydraulically and was capable of changing pitch and yaw at a rate of 1 radian per second or roll at 2 radians per second. The gantry also moved like an overhead crane using electric motors and was capable of travelling 210 feet (64 m) longitudinally at up to 20 feet per second (6.1 m/s), 16 feet (4.9 m) laterally at up to 4 feet per second (1.2 m/s) and vertically 45 feet (14 m) at up to 10 feet per second (3.0 m/s).It is the only surviving simulator from the NASA Gemini and Apollo space programs that was used by astronauts to practice docking of space capsules with other vessels. Ability to dock reliably with the Apollo Lunar Module was a crucial skill essential for the mission to return from the Moon. The docking simulator was used alongside the Projection Planetarium in training exercises. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985.Currently it is stored, hanging from the rafters in Building 1244, a vast hangar at Langley, and there are no plans for it otherwise.

Bethel Manor is a census-designated place (CDP) in York County, Virginia, United States. The population as of the 2010 Census was 3,792. Bethel Manor is a Military Family Community for Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

Bethel High School is a public high school located in the northwestern section of Hampton, Virginia, United States. Bethel is the third of four public high schools in Hampton City Schools along with Kecoughtan, Hampton, and Phoebus.

Peninsula Town Center is an open air mixed-use development located in the Coliseum Central Business improvement district of Hampton, Virginia in the Hampton Roads region. The Town Center is located on the site of the original Coliseum Mall, an enclosed facility constructed in 1973 by Mall Properties Inc. of New York, its only owner. At 991,000-square feet (876,000 retail, 115,000 office), Peninsula Town Center is the largest redevelopment project in Hampton's history. Mall Properties has teamed with Steiner + Associates, which developed Easton Town Center in Columbus; Zona Rosa in Kansas City; The Greene Town Center near Dayton; and Bayshore Town Center near Milwaukee to create Peninsula Town Center. Peninsula Town Center has a mix of department and specialty retailers and restaurants, as well as commercial office and residential space above stores on some buildings. There are also several landscaped parks, plazas and squares and 4,402 parking spaces in surface and structured lots as well as on-street.

Hampton Christian Academy (HCA) is a private pre-K to grade 12 Christian school located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. The school has an elementary school campus and a high school campus.