It's peek not peak

I heard there was mountain climbing at NASA.

Four of us had tickets for entry at 11:00 am. After an hour and a half of trying to get in, we gave up. The lines for shuttle buses were shockingly long, so we walked to the Moffett Blvd gate, where the line for pedestrian entry was an hour wait. NASA/Ames may have been able to handle 20,000 attendees per day, and should have stretched this event over several weekends, instead of cramming 115,000 people in there is a single day. Hopefully, their scientific missions are better managed.

I agree with Waldo. The whole point of ticket reservation should have been to avoid the long lines. But nobody even bothered to check the tickets and the event was definitely overbooked.

I fully agree with the earlier comments. In my case I had to wait in a slow moving, serpentine line over 1.5 hours at the Castro Transit Center for a bus. The bus crawled to Moffitt due to traffic. I noted 101 Southbound was grid locked looking down from our overpass. No one checked my ticket for time or even existence.

There were long lines for everything. Even the display posters were so crowded it was uncomfortable to try to read them. They ran out of bottled water so I had my first Coke in years. One needed special passes to get into the interesting stuff. I finally decided I'd go to the Supercomputing facility as it was far from the entrance, so fewer folk had gone there. Still somewhat croulded but I finally could talk to the presenters. Fascinating!

Tired and frustrated I decided to leave. This time the wait for a return bus was over a half hour.

It's really sad, as it's clear NASA put a lot of energy into great content, but totally screwed up logistics. Yes, this event should have been scheduled over a number of days. If I knew the mess it would be, I wouldn't have gone.

It was a horrific experience for downtown resident like me that needed to get on 101 to go to work at 2 pm that day. I was completely trapped in human and traffic congestion.I hope they won't have another open house for the next 50 years!

This was an amazing event! I got to speak to many scientists who are doing cutting edge space-based research. They are obviously passionate about their work and I learned a lot.

The facility is incredibly huge. There's no way to describe it...whew!

To all those who left negative comments above: You are so ungrateful. With the meager budgets given to NASA, you should be ashamed at your whining. It's been two decades since they opened it to the public. Will it be ever be open again? I doubt it. Most likely, it will close and move out of area.

Thank you NASA Ames for the awesome event!

It was incredible! What a party, with fascinating exhibits, knowledgable hosts explaining all the cool stuff they are doing there, 107 food trucks and live music. Well laid out, with plenty of room.

For all you people whining, you should have just parked at Evelyn VTA (or nearby) and walked a pleasant 25 minutes down Stevens Creek trail, exit to the right on Moffett into Ames. When we walked in at 10:30, there was NO line. None.

I am thankful we have this innovative and useful work going on here, and it was gracious of all the volunteers who gave up their Saturday to share their accomplishments and efforts with us. Great job, a lot of fun; my wife and I had a terrific time.

2 Steve
I everyone (all 120K) followed your example and went to the gates at 10:30, you would also spend several hours in line, wouldn't you?

People are never happy!
It is a free event with wonderful things to learn and see.
Grow up you people! stop complaining!
Be thankful for all the people who made this happened and for the beautiful day.

<3

Geek: there was NO LINE! You just walked in. No one checked tickets. You just walk anywhere you want.