How An Old Navy Base Became The Hotbed For Space Innovation
By Peter Willis
As part of its inaugural trek to Silicon Valley, The Future Society, co-founded at the Harvard Kennedy School to illuminate on future issues at the intersection of governance and technology, also visited the NASA research center in Mountain View, California. Rather than keeping the insights from that visit to ourselves, we decided to share them.
Long before Google HQ and the Facebook house, Hangar One was the original Silicon Valley landmark. A huge structure covering 8 acres, the hangar was designed in the days of the Hindenburg to house naval airships. Now it stands bare, its 200 feet high steel beams exposed like a half-built ship.
At first glance, the story of how its ownership passed from the government to the private sector, reads like a quintessential tale of creative destruction. But there’s a twist in the tale that illuminates an important truth about the relationship between some of the most innovative tech companies in the Valley and government policy.
Hangar One was built in 1933 by German architects for the USS Macon, a huge airship almost the size of the Hindenburg. After the Macon crashed 2 years later, the Hangar remained in use as part of the Moffett Field air base until the base was slated for closure in the mid-1990s.
In 1994, the base was turned over to NASA, which operates the Ames Research Center on the adjoining land. NASA’s plan was to convert Hangar One into a space and science museum and turn the rest of the base into a commercial cargo airpot. The plan did not eventuate, or at least in the way that NASA thought that it might. Instead the area became one of the most innovative places in Silicon Valley.
When the local residents rejected the proposal for the commercial cargo airport, NASA changed tack. After a process of local consultation, it was decided that the base would be re-opened as a Research Park. The vision was for a place where research institutions, commercial enterprises and government could share facilities and ideas.
Supported by NASA HQ and politicians including President Obama, the Ames Research Park has become a hotbed for start-ups racing to develop commercial technology for space: 3D printers that can manufacture a new wrench when one breaks on International Space Station, satellites smaller than household objects, equipment that can mine asteroids. The companies benefit from access to NASA’s facilities, NASA benefits from access to their innovation.
As for Hangar One, it’s now leased to Planetary Ventures, a Google company. Google plans to restore the hangar, which is leaking toxic chemicals. No-one is quite sure what Google plans to do with the building and with the adjacent land. What is certain is that it would not be possible without the foresight of the NASA policy-makers in the mid-1990s who saw an opportunity to transform unused government land into a platform for inter-stellar innovation.
Peter Willis is a masters student at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He’s interested in how governments can better use technology to improve the lives of their citizens.
