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) laboratory. That agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist and one of the founding members of NACA. At last estimate NASA Ames had over US$3 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget.
Aerial view of Moffett Field and Ames Research Center in 1982
Hangar One, originally a US Navy airship hangar, in Moffett Field, California
IBM 7090 mainframe computer at Ames in 1961. Smith DeFrance, Ames' founding director, is second from the left.
One of the air intakes of the 80 by 120 foot wind tunnel (world's largest), located at NASA Ames Research Center
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, 2014, NASA announced that it would be leasing 1,000 acres (400 ha) of the airfield property to Google for 60 years.
Moffett Federal Airfield
Established in 1931, Moffett Field in Sunnyvale/Mountain View has played a strategic role in Silicon Valley's evolution, researching and developing key technologies, first for the U.S. military and then for NASA. Today it hosts the Ames Research Center.
Aerial view of NAS Moffett Field and NASA Ames Research Center in 1982
Aerial view of Moffett Field from the east, with under-construction (in 2019) Google buildings visible on both sides of Stevens Creek beyond the field
