14 DAY TRIAL // Google is going to rent out the historic Moffett Federal Airfield from NASA, the two announced. This is the same place where Google unveiled that it was going to conduct some tests for its driverless cars some months ago.
The airfield is actually a 1,000-acre air base that’s about 4 miles away from Google’s Mountain View headquarters. The contract NASA signed is with Planetary Ventures, a subsidiary of Google.
“In an effort to reduce costs and shed surplus property, NASA today signed a lease with Planetary Ventures, LLC to manage Moffett Federal Airfield (MFA), an agency facility located in Moffett Field, California, and rehabilitate its historic Hangar One. NASA estimates the lease will save the agency approximately $6.3 million (€5.07 million) annually in maintenance and operation costs and provide $1.16 billion (€0.93 billion) in rent over the initial 60-year lease term,” reads NASA’s announcement.
The land includes three hangars, an airfield flight operations building, two runways and a private golf course.
NASA’s administrator Charles Bolden poetically says that as NASA expands its presence in space, they’re making strides to reduce the footprint on Earth. Therefore, they want to invest taxpayer resources in scientific discovery, technology development and space exploration, not in maintaining infrastructure that is no longer needed.
What does the future hold?
Planetary Ventures plans to invest more than $200 million in capital improvements to the property and commits, in the lease, to several undertakings that will benefit the public when complete. On the one hand, it wants to refurbish and protect historic Hangar One in accordance with standards established for historic properties by the US Secretary of the Interior, as well as to rehabilitate historic Hangars Two and Three.
They will also operate MFA in accordance with the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for public and private use, as well as to create an educational facility where the public can explore the site’s legacy and the role of technology in the history of Silicon Valley.
“We look forward to rolling up our sleeves to restore the remarkable landmark Hangar One, which for years has been considered one of the most endangered historic sites in the United States,” said David Radcliffe, vice president of Real Estate and Workplace Services at Google Inc.
Once renovations are complete, Planetary Ventures will use the facility for research, development, assembly and testing in the areas of space exploration, aviation, rover/robotics and other emerging technologies, which basically sums up Google’s moonshot projects.
