Hangar One is one of the world's largest freestanding structures, covering at

Moffett Field Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale. On November 10 ...

near Mountain View,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. The massive hangar has long been one of the most recognizable landmarks of California's

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

. It was built in the 1930s as a naval

airship hangar Airship hangars (also known as airship sheds) are large specialized buildings that are used for sheltering airships during construction, maintenance and storage. Rigid airships always needed to be based in airship hangars because weathering was a ...

for the USS ''Macon'' and is now part of the NASA

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labo ...

Design and construction

Designed by German air ship and structural engineer Dr. Karl Arnstein, Vice President and Director of Engineering for the Goodyear

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...

Corporation of Akron, Ohio, in collaboration with Wilbur Watson Associates Architects and Engineers of Cleveland, Ohio, Hangar One is constructed on a network of steel

girder A girder () is a support beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing ''flanges'' separated by a stabilizing ...

s sheathed with

galvanized steel Galvanization or galvanizing ( also spelled galvanisation or galvanising) is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to steel or iron, to prevent rusting. The most common method is hot-dip galvanizing, in which the parts are submerg ...

. It rests firmly upon a reinforced pad anchored to concrete pilings. The floor covers 8 acres and can accommodate six (360 feet x 160 feet) American football fields. The

measures long and wide. The building has an

aerodynamic Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

. Its walls curve inward to form an elongated approximate

catenary In physics and geometry, a catenary (, ) is the curve that an idealized hanging chain or cable assumes under its own weight when supported only at its ends in a uniform gravitational field. The catenary curve has a U-like shape, superfici ...

form 198 feet (60 m) high. The clam-shell doors were designed to reduce

turbulence In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to a laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between ...

when the ''Macon'' moved in and out on windy days. The "orange peel" doors, weighing 200 short tons (180 metric tons) each, are moved by their own motors operated via an electrical control panel. The hangar's interior is so large that fog sometimes forms near the ceiling. Standard gauge tracks run through the length of the hangar. During the period of lighter-than-air dirigibles and non-rigid aircraft, the rails extended across the apron and into the fields at each end of the hangar. This tramway facilitated the transportation of an

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

on the mooring mast to the hangar interior or to the flight position. During the brief period that the ''Macon'' was based at Moffett, Hangar One accommodated not only the giant airship but several smaller non-rigid lighter-than-air craft simultaneously.

Similar structures

Hangar One is similar to the

Goodyear Airdock The Goodyear Airdock is a construction and storage airship hangar in Akron, Ohio. At its completion in 1929, it was the largest building in the world without interior supports. Description The building has a unique shape which has been describe ...

in Akron, Ohio which was built by the Goodyear

Corporation in 1929. At the time the Goodyear Airdock was built, the structure, located in Northeast Ohio, was the largest building in the world without interior supports. It provided an unusually extensive room for the construction of "lighter-than-air" ships (airships, dirigibles, or blimps). The first two airships to be constructed and launched at the Goodyear Airdock were USS ''Akron'' and its sister ship, USS ''Macon'', built in 1931 and 1933, respectively. These two airships were 785 feet (239 m) in length. Other historic references date back to Europe. An outstanding example are the two "hangars d'Orly" for dirigibles at

Orly Air Base Orly Air Base was a United States Air Force Facility during the early part of the Cold War, located at Aéroport de Paris-Orly, south of Paris, France. The American Air Base was located on the north side of the airport, in an area east of the c ...

near Paris. They were designed and built in 1921–1922 by French structural and civil engineer

Eugène Freyssinet Eugène Freyssinet () (13 July 1879 – 8 June 1962) was a French structural and civil engineer. He was the major pioneer of prestressed concrete. Biography Freyssinet was born in at Objat, Corrèze, France. He worked in the '' École National ...

, the major pioneer of prestressed concrete, and destroyed in World War II. Another remarkable example of a similar concrete construction are the two airplane hangars for the

Italian Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = (Ordinance March of the Air Force) by Alberto Di Miniello , mascot = , anniversaries = 28 March ...

in Orvieto, Italy, by Italian architect and structural engineer

Pier Luigi Nervi Pier Luigi Nervi (21 June 1891 – 9 January 1979) was an Italian engineer and architect. He studied at the University of Bologna graduating in 1913. Nervi taught as a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946 to 1961 and is known wor ...

, designed in 1935 and built in 1938. They were also destroyed during World War II.

History

On February 24, 1994, the

Shenandoah Plaza National Historic District The U.S. Naval Air Station, Sunnyvale Historic District, also known as Shenandoah Plaza, is a historic district located on at Moffett Field, California. Hangars One, Two, and Three, and the adjacent Shenandoah Plaza are inclusively designated ...

, including Hangar One, was accepted into the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. On May 20, 2008, Hangar One was listed as one of the 11 most endangered historic places in the U.S. by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Plans to convert it to a space and science center were put on hold with the discovery in 2003 that the structure was leaking toxic chemicals into the sediment in wetlands bordering San Francisco Bay. The chemicals originated in the lead paint and toxic materials, including

polychlorinated biphenyl Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1979 and internationally by t ...

s (PCBs), used to coat the hangar. Proposed options included tearing down the hangar and reusing the land, or cleaning the toxic waste from the site and refurbishing the hangar for future preservation. An offer to clean the hangar and coat its outsides with solar panels to recoup the costs of cleaning was proposed by a private company, but the plan never saw fruition due to its cost. In December 2010, the Navy began remediating the PCBs, lead and asbestos, and NASA was evaluating options for reuse of the hangar. Some historic and nonprofit groups expressed a desire for the hangar to be preserved as a historic landmark, as the hangar is a major Bay Area landmark and historic site. In April 2011, after months of planning and preparation, work to remove the exterior panels began, requiring "the biggest scaffolding job in the history of the West Coast." The work was completed in mid-2012. In October 2011,

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

top executives

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unti ...

Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was th ...

and Eric Schmidt proposed paying the full $33 million cost of revamping Hangar One, in exchange for being able to use up to two-thirds of the floor space to shelter eight of their private jets. In 2014, NASA and the General Services Administration selected Planetary Ventures (a subsidiary of Google) to manage Hangar One and Moffett airfield, and Google will pay $1.16 billion over 60 years for the lease. In May 2016, Google announced that it is prepared to begin testing different techniques to remove the toxic chemicals from the hangar. In May 2017, it was announced that the restoration of the hangar would be completed in 2025.

References

External links

NASA: Moffett Field History

Moffett Field Museum

2008 List of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places Announced

NASA Ames Historic Preservation Office

National Park Service: National Register of Historic Places in Santa Clara County

Save Hangar One
{{San Jose and Silicon Valley attractions Aircraft hangars in the United States Buildings of the United States Navy Buildings and structures in Mountain View, California Buildings and structures completed in 1933 Military facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area Historic district contributing properties in California National Register of Historic Places in Santa Clara County, California Aircraft hangars on the National Register of Historic Places 1933 establishments in California Moffett Field Closed installations of the United States Navy

Design and construction

Similar structures

History

See also

References

External links