Hangar One (Mountain View, California)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Hangar One is one of the world's largest freestanding structures, covering at Moffett Field near Mountain View,
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
in the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
. 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 is 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 area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
. It was built in the 1930s as a naval airship hangar for 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) laborat ...
.


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 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. 155â ...
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 Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...
girder A girder () is a Beam (structure), 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 sta ...
s sheathed with galvanized steel. It rests firmly upon a reinforced pad anchored to concrete pilings. The floor covers and can accommodate six American football fields. The airship hangar measures long and wide. The building has an
aerodynamic Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...
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 construction, constructi ...
. 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 wire rope, 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, ...
form 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 laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers with no disruption between ...
when ''Macon'' moved in and out on windy days. The "orange peel" doors, weighing 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 A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...
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, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying powered aircraft, under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the ...
on the mooring mast to the hangar interior or to the flight position. During the brief period that ''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 descr ...
in Akron, Ohio which was built by the Goodyear
Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor 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. 155â ...
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 and its sister ship, ''Macon'', built in 1931 and 1933, respectively. These two airships were in length. Other historic references date back to Europe. An outstanding example are the two for dirigibles at Orly Air Base near Paris. They were designed and built in 1921–1922 by French structural and civil engineer Eugène Freyssinet, 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 The Italian Air Force (; AM, ) is the air force of the Italy, Italian Republic. The Italian Air Force was founded as an independent service arm on 28 March 1923 by Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, King Victor Emmanuel III as the ("Royal Air Force ...
in
Orvieto Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are compl ...
, Italy, by Italian architect and structural engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, 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, including Hangar One, was accepted into the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
. 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 The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 ...
. 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 organochlorine compounds with the formula Carbon, C12Hydrogen, H10−''x''Chloride, Cl''x''; they were once widely used in the manufacture of carbonless copy paper, as heat transfer fluids, and as dielectri ...
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. There was an overwhelming desire from the local community 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 and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
top executives
Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American businessman, computer engineer and computer scientist best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was chief executive officer of Google from 1997 until August 2001 when ...
,
Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (; born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and businessman who co-founded Google with Larry Page. He was the president of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., until stepping down from the role on D ...
and
Eric Schmidt Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American businessman and former computer engineer who was the chief executive officer of Google from 2001 to 2011 and the company's chairman, executive chairman from 2011 to 2015. He also was the ...
proposed paying the full $33 million (equivalent to $ in ) 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.


See also

* Hangar No. 1, Lakehurst Naval Air Station * Weeksville Dirigible Hangar * Tropical Islands Resort, housed inside the ''Aerium'' airship hangar at Brand-Briesen Airfield, Halbe, Germany *
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 descr ...
* Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport * Marine Corps Air Station Tustin * Tillamook Air Museum * Cardington Airfield


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 Airship hangars 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 American Engineering Record in California 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