How to tell the story of 100 years in just three days? That is the challenge for the Langley Centennial Symposium this week at the Hampton Roads Convention Center.

And the answer, in part, is to focus on even more than 100 years by including a look into the future.

The symposium, which runs from Wednesday through Friday and is open to the public free of charge, is part of this summer's celebration of the centennial of NASA Langley Research Center, which was founded in 1917 under the heading of the National Advisory Commission for Aeronautics.

"We'd like to see people come away with a better understanding not only of what Langley has done, but what NASA as a whole has done over the last 100 years," Langley spokesman Michael Finneran said. "There are amazing achievements that made stuff possible like supersonic flight. We also hope they will have a better understanding of what NASA and Langley are doing now, and some sense of what the future might look like."

Langley Research Center, which was the epicenter of the early days of America's space program, has received a sudden burst of national attention in the past few years after the release of the best-selling book "Hidden Figures" and its Oscar-nominated film adaptation.

The book focused on the stories of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, three African-American women whose work at NASA Langley in mathematics and engineering was vital to the space program in an era when women and minorities were thought to have no major role in technical fields.

Finneran said the center routinely receives phone calls, emails and correspondence from people all around the country wanting information on those ladies, and hoping to contact Johnson, who lives in Newport News and will turn 99 years old next month. At the symposium, NASA historian Bill Barry will tell "The Story Behind the Story" of the book and the film.

"There are two things that I will largely focus on," Barry said. "First, 'what is a human computer and where the heck did they come from?' How did women start getting hired here, including the main characters, and how they fit in. Second, I'll talk about NASA's involvement with the movie and what we did to help make it as accurate as possible."

Barry said the response to the book and the film has been overwhelmingly positive for NASA, for Langley, and for the science and technological fields in general.

"When you talk about NASA, people think of astronauts and amazing scientists, but the people who do the day-to-day stuff don't get the attention, and they're amazing in their own right," Barry said. "NASA's big interest in collaborating with 20th Century Fox on the movie was that it was a way to get to a group of kids who otherwise might have never associated their future with NASA. Now they see, 'I can be a fill-in-the-blank and still work at NASA and do cool stuff.' Math and science come into a new focus."

In response to the demand, Langley and other NASA centers around the country have developed a "Modern Figures" program, with contemporary employees trained to give presentations to the public about the space program today and how it relates to the work described in "Hidden Figures."

The symposium will feature panel discussions, as well as keynote addresses by Jean-Yves Le Gall, the president of France's space program, and by former NASA deputy administrator Dava Newman.

Topics will include the history of human flight, international partnerships in space exploration, the future of NASA, and yes, the story behind the story of "Hidden Figures."

Finneran said one of the goals is for attendees to come away with a greater understanding of how NASA's work in space has affected our daily lives here on Earth.

"So much of what we do today has to do with Earth science and understanding more about our climate," he said. "Not only benefits for the long term, but also for right now working with agencies like (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) on making better predictions of weather, and of hurricane and storm forecasting.

"NASA is doing things that benefit people here on Earth, either deliberately or when we happen to see ways that technology we've developed can be used in different ways, such as medical applications. We always want the public to understand more about what we do."

Holtzclaw can be reached by phone at 757-928-6479.

Where: Hampton Roads Convention Center, adjacent to the Hampton Coliseum

When: Wednesday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Friday, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

Admission: Free

Wednesday: Welcome; keynote presentation by former NASA deputy administrator Dava Newman; panel discussion of Langley Center directors; "Hidden Figures: The Story Behind the Story"; Langley During World War II; panel discussion on the history of flight

Thursday: Keynote presentation by Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of France's space program; panel discussion on how NASA's work benefits society; science and technology scholars student presentations; panel discussion on the future of NASA; History of How the HL-20 Became the Dream Chaser; panel discussion on NASA Langley's contributions to technology and space exploration

Friday: Panel discussion on aeronautics research partnerships; panel discussion on applying existing technologies to challenges in space; The Next 100 Years; panel discussion on aerospace in the next 20-30 years; closing remarks

Information: http://www.nasa.gov/langley/100/events, or call 757-315-2200

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NASA Langley symposium looks at past, present and future - Daily Press