Googlejust snatch up a piece of American historyin Silicon Valley . NASA harbinger on Monday that Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures LLC would take over the Moffett Federal Airfield includingthe iconic and tower Hangar One , former home of America ’s self-aggrandising blimps .
Well , that sound pretty weird . What on Earth does Google desire with a historical sausage balloon hangar and airfield ? Are they going to fill it with robots ? Will it be a giant Google Glass store ? Does it have anything to do withthose mysterious barges ?
The Sojourner Truth , unfortunately , is probably not as alluring as you might conceive of . In all likelihood , Google is take over the readiness so that it has more places to park its executive ’ secret spirt , some of which are already kept at Moffett Airfield . This is after Google executives caused a stir , whenreports emergedthat they were abusing the troupe ’s relationship with nearby NASA Ames Research Center , from whom Google had engage 40 land for a 1.2 - million - square - foot R&D facility . Apparently , Google executive were buy cheap super C fuel from NASA that had been subsidize by taxpayers . NASAadmitted as muchin December .
http://valleywag.gawker.com/nasa-admits-google-execs-flew-private-jets-with-cheap-g-1482030742
Controversy aside , Google ’s taking over Hangar One is good tidings , especially for you military story buffs . Very recently , many people thought that the hangar would be torn down , as it had fallen out of usance .
The monolithic structure was built in 1932 by Dr. Karl Arnstein from the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation in Akron , Ohio , to house the Navy ’s USS Macon , then the crown jewel of the country ’s dirigible fleet . With a flooring that cover more than eight land andcan accommodate ten football game field of battle , Hangar One was one of the biggest freestanding structures in the world . It ’s so big , in fact , that fogginess would sometimes form around the ceiling .
Hangar One ’s twenty-four hours of caparison airshipswere numbered , however . When the Macon crashed in 1935 , the United States shift its focal point to plane , and the Army took over Moffett Airfield turning it into a West Coast training center for the Air Corps , herald of the U.S. Air Force . Over the next several decades , the base became inbuilt in every conflict from World War II to the Cold War . It was also home to some of the first ultrasonic jet , though the dissonance bothered Silicon Valley occupant enough to move the planes to nearby San Joaquin Valley in 1961 .
NASA took over Moffett Field and Hangar One in 1994 . It made sense at the time , since NASA had been mesh the nearby Ames Research Center for over five decades , but the base proved to be nothing but problems . The federal agency discovered in the late nineties that the construction ’s lead - based paint had decomposed and turn to dust that contain severe polychlorinated biphenyl ( PCB ) atom .
The whole complex was shut down , and the Navy was anticipate in to pick up the quite a little . In 2008 , they decide to take out all siding and interior structures in 2008 , leaving Hangar One a skeleton in the closet . Google administrator offer to pay up the full $ 33 million to touch on the hangar in 2012 , a move that eventually precede NASA to agree to the lease .
So , for now , the good news is that Hangar One wo n’t be going anywhere . The more idea - provoking news show is that NASA is continuing to turn to the private sphere for income as its budgetcontinues to get slash . With Google ’s money , NASA will be able-bodied to reestablish Hangar One to its former nimbus , rehabilitate two other hangars on Moffett Airfield , build an educational adroitness , and even fix up its nearby golf game course . Google get a blimp hangar ; NASA gets a golf game course . Everybody wins . [ Wired ]
Images via NASA / Ames / Geoff Manaugh
ArchitectureGoogleNASASilicon Valley
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , science , and culture intelligence in your inbox day by day .
News from the time to come , deliver to your present .
You May Also Like
