In Houston, they get to hear from astronauts in English. But JPL brainiacs must monitor and decipher the blips, beeps and telemetry of NASA's unmanned spacecrafts exploring the solar system. Voyager, Mariner, Galileo, Mars rovers—JPL is boldly going where no man has gone before.

JPL was started by California Institute of Technology (CalTech) students on the "Suicide Squad," a group that liked to conduct loud and dangerous rocket experiments. Banished from the CalTech grounds but championed by one of their professors, they found an isolated place in the hills to continue their projects. Today, JPL is a world-renowned research and development center for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The modest facility is home to some of the greatest scientific achievements in space flight and space exploration, from Voyager missions to Jupiter to the Mars rovers to deep-space images from the Hubble Telescope. Tours are available by appointment. —Mai Dinh