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>Lisa Lockyer
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> NASA Ames Development Plan
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>The NASA Ames Development Plan details the transformation of the original
>500-acre campus of Ames Research Center and 1,500 acres of the former
>Naval Air Station Moffett Field into an integrated, dynamic research and
>education community. The transformation will be led by the establishment
>of the NASA Research Park, a research and development campus for partners
>from academia, industry and non-profit organizations with shared goals in
>support of NASA's mission. The NASA Ames Development Plan and supporting
>Environmental Impact Statement is at http://researchpark.arc.nasa.gov .
>This talk will summarize the project and associated development issues.
>
>
>Lisa Lockyer, born and raised in the Bay Area, earned a B.A. with honors
>from Harvard University, and after receiving her law degree practiced
>criminal law for four years as a deputy district attorney. She came to
>NASA Ames Research Center in 1998, and for the past four years has
>worked in the Office of Development and Communication, focusing on the
>development of Moffett Field into a shared-use research and education
>center.
>
Lisa began her talk by showing us a map of the site. Highlights from that tour included news that the bay trail, which has long had a break at Moffett field will go through as soon as they finish moving the munitions stored at the end of the runway to the bunker on the golf course. The Historic district, where NASA does most of their research on IT related topics, will become more scenic as the "junky shacks" behind Hanger One are removed and replaced with a greenbelt. The Computer Museum will be joined by an Aeronautical Museum in Hanger One.
The military housing that had historically belonged to the Navy has changed hands twice since then. For a brief period after the Navy washed its hands of it, the Air Force had it. Now the Army maintains it as housing for soldiers stationed throughout the area, since there isn't much of that left anywhere on the peninsula. Because they don't need it all, some is allocated to other organizations like the Veterans Hospital. NASA uses some of it to house visiting scientists. If the Army decides it doesn't need the housing at some point, ownership will be offered to any Federal Agency that wants it, and NASA will take control then.
There are now two Universities that have facilities on the site. Carnegie Mellon University has a research lab where they plan to focus on nanotechnology and high reliability computing, both things that Silicon Valley is known for. UC Santa Cruz will open a local extension campus in a temporary building on the site soon. After about five years in that, they plan to move into more permanent quarters for the rest of their sixty year lease with NASA.
The area of the base along Highway 101 between the Light Rail station and the Ellis Street gate is where NASA plans to install a Corporate Partner. There were many more that wanted office space a year and a half ago, but there are still people that want to syntergize with the NASA Scientists on the rest of the site, and they expect to sign a Memo Of Understanding (MOU) about the fate of the area sometime in the next few months or year at most.
The Wind Tunnels and associated laboratories that are left over from when the place was a world class Aeronautical Research station have not been torn down. Right now NASA is inviting in anyone who wants to rent time on them for product improvement research to come on down. Recent customers include CalTrans, who rented wind tunnel time to see how their new generation of freeway signs would hold up under extreme conditions, and some mobile home and trucking companies. NASA now has a relatively simple way to use their facilities, and all they want to do is cover their costs.
Tian Harter
For more info, please click on www.researchpark.arc.nasa.gov .