NASA Research Park - Ames Research Center

Ames Research Center

The U.S. Congress originally established Ames Research Center (Ames) in 1939 as the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory under the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Ames eventually grew to occupy approximately 500 acres (2.0 km2) at Moffett Field adjacent to the Naval Air Station Moffett Field in Santa Clara County, California, in the center of the region that would, in the 1990s, become known worldwide as Silicon Valley. In 1958, Congress created NASA with the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, 42 U.S.C. § 2451 et seq. The Ames Aeronautical Laboratory was renamed Ames Research Center and became a NASA field center.

Ames is nearing 70 years of age, which it calls “Seven Decades of Innovation,” highlighted with major accomplishments in aeronautics and space. From the 1940s through the 1990s, Ames scientists and engineers demonstrated excellence in flight research in many areas including variable stability aircraft, guidance and control displays, boundary-layer control, vertical and short takeoff and landing aircraft, and rotorcraft. Ames developed the swept wing design and the conical camber, now considered in the design of every supersonic aircraft.

Ames developed and operated critical facilities including flight simulators and wind tunnels, pushing the frontiers of computers and the arcjets facility to test materials at very high temperatures, which were critical to high-speed aircraft development and space vehicle re-entry. Ames largest contribution to the early space program for human missions was solving the problem of getting astronauts safely back to Earth, through the development of the blunt body design for re-entry vehicles.

Ames assisted the development of Apollo, developed and operated the Pioneer Missions (the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belts, observe Jupiter and Saturn and Venus), and developed the tiltrotor aircraft. The diversity of accomplishments led to the focus in the 1990s on Ames becoming the high-tech center of NASA. In those days in NASA parlance, Ames became the Center of Excellence for Information Technologies, taking the lead in human centered computing, a major interdisciplinary effort to develop means of optimizing the performance of mixed human and computer systems. These new technologies were critical for both aeronautics and space operations with ground-based operators, astronauts (or pilots/controllers in the air traffic management system) and robots functioning collaboratively to maximize mission science return, productivity and safety. This human centered computing focus developed the expertise for Ames to become the lead for all supercomputing in NASA, and in 2005 Ames operated the world’s fastest supercomputer, partnered with SGI and Intel.

In the 1990s, following its historic excellence in life and space sciences, Ames developed a focused new program called Astrobiology to search for the origins of life in the universe. Ames leads NASA’s Kepler Mission, a spacecraft designed to find Earth-sized planets in other galaxies that may be in or near habitable zones, distances from a star where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Ames developed SOFIA, the new Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, using a Boeing 747 aircraft that will study the universe for the next twenty years in the infrared spectrum.

Concurrent with the outstanding innovations in science and technology, Ames has become the leader in NASA for innovative partnerships with universities and industry, both onsite and in distance collaborations. The opportunity for this new partnering became available in the early 1990s, with the potential for R&D partners to move into the property obtained from the transfer of Navy Moffett Field land to NASA.

From its establishment in 1939, Ames shared the land generally known as Moffett Field with the United States Navy, jointly using the major airfield on the property. In the 1930s the Navy developed Moffett Field originally for the home of the famous “Lighter than Air Era of American Military History,” housing and operating large-scale airships. Through the years a number of different military organizations, including the United States Air Force, used the Moffett Field facilities, and in the late 1980s the Navy operated the base.

With the enactment of the Base Realignment and Closure Act in 1991, Congress directed the Navy to close and vacate the Naval Air Station at Moffett Field. Under the framework of the Federal Property Administrative Services Act of 1949, 40 U.S.C. §471, NASA successfully negotiated custody of most of the Navy property, with the strong support of the local governments surrounding Moffett Field and the U.S. Congressmen from the area, especially Rep. Norman Mineta. The decision was properly approved through the federal government process to transfer the property to NASA and disestablish the Naval Air Station Moffett Field. The United States Department of Defense decided to retain control of 57 hectares (140 acres) of military housing at Moffett Field. In 1994, the Department of the Navy transferred approximately 600 hectares (1,500 acres) to NASA. This transfer created a unique opportunity for NASA to provide stewardship for the entire 800-hectare (2,000 acre) site, except the military housing.

Prior to obtaining control of Moffett Field, NASA prepared the Moffett Field Comprehensive Use Plan (CUP) to implement its management program for the newly expanded Ames. An Environmental Assessment (EA) and Finding of No Significant Impact accompanied the plan. The EA established under the CUP allows for the development of up to approximately 102,000 square meters (1.1 million square feet) of new construction.

The transfer of Moffett Field to Ames supplied the impetus to consider various new uses of the property for NASA’s benefit. Ames leaders began discussions with federal, state and community leaders for potential reuse ideas.