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Google Founder Offer $33M For Use of NASA Airship Hangar
theodp writes "The Mercury News reports that NASA is considering an offer from Google's billionaire founders to provide '100 percent' funding to save Hangar One. Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt have, through a company they control, proposed paying the full $33 million cost of revamping Hangar One, once home to the Navy's giant airships at Moffett Field, in return for use up to two-thirds of the floor space of the hangar to house their fleet of eight private jets. In October, the Googlers struck an agreement with NASA Ames calling for the use of their 'co-located' Alpha fighter jet to, among other things, help NASA mitigate wildfires and study global warming."
Mythbusters... Where are they going to perform their experiments if most of the hangar is full of planes?
The Navy no longer has any airships. The hangar is left over from WWII when they used blimps to patrol off the coast for Japanese submarines.
For the Highest Fliers, New Scrutiny: Messrs. Page and Brin, the Google co-founders, operate at least four aircraft registered under various companies that aren't connected to Google, FAA and other aviation records show: a Boeing 767, a Boeing 757, plus two Gulfstream G-V's. During the four-year period, the jets' most frequent destinations outside of their northern California base were Los Angeles, New York and Washington. For last year's eclipse-viewing journey, the 767 and a Gulfstream V each made two round-trips from the U.S. mainland to Tahiti. Those flights used an estimated 52,000 gallons of aviation fuel and in total cost upwards of $430,000, according to calculations by Conklin & de Decker Aviation Information. The research firm is hired by some public companies to provide aircraft-cost estimates for regulatory filings. A Google spokeswoman confirmed that the Tahiti journey was for the eclipse, saying the pair brought a group with them on the planes. Messrs. Page and Brin have mitigated the greenhouse gas emissions from their aircraft usage by purchasing an even greater amount of carbon offsets, she said. They also frequently lend their planes for philanthropic and scientific missions.
I'm more concerned that google effectively has a fighter jet.
I suspect it's a bit more convoluted. The shell company that technically owns the jets and that will be using 2/3rds of the hangar has an odd relationship with NASA, refurbishing old jets, from small fighters to Boeing 767's, and turning them into "science" planes. It's more like this company is subsidizing the government. Sort of.
That "sort of" is what's intriguing. The jets are being refurbished, thanks to a massive pool of unaudited money, for vague "science" missions. The closest thing that comes to mind is Hughes and his odd relationship with the government: that entanglement produced the Glomar Explorer ostensibly for deep-sea mineral research but really for a CIA program to recover a Soviet submarine. The Google-NASA public-private partnership for "science" or "research" may be a way of hiding expensive and highly experimental espionage programs from auditors by keeping programs off the public books. The flights so far have included "observation" of a returning ESA space vehicle, so they have the capability to monitor signals from an inbound object; maybe also satellites? If you think all this sounds a bit paranoid, consider that Google and the CIA have some similar investment interests.
The smaller hangers to the east of the runways were for blimps. Hanger One was built for the USS Macon, a rigid airship that was lost in 1935. It's a magnificent, incredibly large building, that is even more incredible when you realize that it was filled up by one object that flew.
The US Navy does own some lighter than air craft, including the MZ-3A which is a blimp. But, hey... it mostly floats.
True; when you have the chance visit the museum right around the corner. Take one of the Docent tours, ours was great, they have tons of stuff to show.
If you don't life on the edge you take up too much space!
That's not that much to spend for the cost savings of having a consolidated location for the fleet. This will significantly decrease the cost of maintenance and upkeep, and if I had to guess, will pay for itself in a very short time.
I went through this same thing on a smaller scale last year when I was finally able to get a large hanger at one airport as opposed to three single hangars at two different airports. Now I only have one hangar bill, one mechanic, and keeping track of everything is much easier.
I love how dropping $33M can be read as tax evasion by you.
(Or do you really think the airport use fees at SJC will tally up to $33M? That's a LOT of flights at $40 a pop.)
There's a difference between loopholing your way out of taxes and (practically) buying your own airfield. This is pretty clean cut IMO. There's fees at a local airport but not a private one, and therefore some rich dudes buy a hangar at the private airport. I don't really see that as "evasion" per se. It'd be like owning a garage and someone calls you out for "stealing" revenue from the city's parking meters by not using them.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Hehe. The funny thing is that most 4channers and Slashdotters will probably be in the top 5% or so when you take the world population into account..
The US median household income is about $48K. According to http://www.globalrichlist.com/, someone making $48K annually is in the top 0.99% worldwide. So half of Americans are "one-percenters". I think the average well-established (10+ years experience, good track record) software engineer makes over $100K, which puts them in the top 0.66% worldwide.
To make the top 1% in the US (in terms of household income, which isn't the same as wealth), you have to have an annual income in excess of $300K, which puts you on the top 0.001% worldwide.
To be in the top 5% worldwide you need an annual household income of $33,700 or higher. I suspect that very, very few slashdotters who have full-time employment fall below that level.
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