Google takes over landmark Nasa airfield

Δημοσιεύθηκε: 10 Νοεμβρίου 2014 - 23:35

Google has taken a 60-year lease on a Nasa airfield next to its Silicon Valley headquarters as it pushes deeper into researching areas like space exploration and vehicles capable of navigating other planets.

The lease includes a commitment to spend $200m on the facilities at the Moffett airfield, including renovating a gigantic historic airship hangar that has become a prominent local landmark.

Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, along with chairman Eric Schmidt, have had an agreement with Nasa for some time to use the airfield as a base for their private jets.

The space agency rejected an offer to pay for the renovation of Moffett's Hangar One, which stands some 200 feet high, in return for allowing Google executives to house their planes in the building, opting instead to run a competitive tender for facilities last year.

Announcing a deal with Google on Monday, Nasa said the Moffett facilities would be used for "research, development, assembly and testing in the areas of space exploration, aviation, rover/robotics and other emerging technologies."

Google has not disclosed any plans of its own to engage in interplanetary exploration, though it has offered a $20m prize for any private mission before the end of next year that can land a robot on the moon, travel 500 meters and send back images.

The lease will bring in $1.16bn in rents over its 60-year life and save $6.3m a year in operating costs, Nasa said on Monday. The agency and a Google real estate subsidiary called Planetary Resources first reached a tentative deal for the airfield in February, though terms were not disclosed at the time.

Sitting alongside Google's headquarters, Moffett has already become a focus of the company's attention as it outgrows its campus and spreads into nearby neighbourhoods in Mountain View and Palo Alto. Besides using it for the private planes of its top executives, Google has already agreed to lease part of the land to extend its facilities.

The three hangars and the airstrip covered by the latest lease include 1,000 acres of land alongside San Francisco Bay, part of which is used as a private golf course.

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