Google bosses want historic garage for their private jets

Three weeks after Google abandoned its Renewable Energy campaign and gave up pursuing research on greening America, the big-wigs at the search engine behemoth have unveiled new plans: a $33 million garage for their private jets.

Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt — the CEO, co-founder and executive chairman of Google, respectively — have asked NASA if they could dump some spare change into purchasing a historic aircraft hangar in the Bay Area of California. While suggestions tossed around for the Hangar One structure at Moffett Field included relocating a nearby museum to the structure or branching out the Smithsonian Institute to the West Coast, the Google execs believe that the 8-acre landmark would be a great place to park their fleet of eight private jets.So did Google stop funding the Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal project last month to find a way for three men to necessitate a total of eight jets? Seems like a good use of brainpower if you ask me. Silicon Valley’s Hangar One was erected in the 1930s and was actively used until 2003. At that point officials discovered that the landmark was sitting on toxic land and attempted to restore the building, an effort which has since been nearly a decade in the making. The US Navy is currently dismantling the contaminated shell of the building, which is scheduled to be completed by the summer. Should Google step in with their proposed millions of dollars in investments, however, they could take over and expedite the restoration of the 361,000-square feet structure.Reporters with Bay Area News Group write that the three Google execs first made their proposal to NASA Ames in September, which was met favorably by the group. Ken Ambrose, director of operations for H211 — the Google bosses’ company that operates the fleet of jets — adds to the outlet, however, that NASA administration has not formally approved their proposal yet. The plans were allegedly introduced before a Hangar One Subcommittee of the Moffet Field Restoration Advisory Board earlier this month.Bob Jacobs, a NASA spokesman, wrote to the reporters over the weekend that "it would be premature to discuss the merits of the proposal until we have had time to review the details.”"We understand the interest and historic nature of the facility and we have to weigh that against the reality of constrained resources and use. We are giving all options thoughtful consideration as we prepare our funding proposal for the Fiscal Year 2013 budget,” added Jacobs.The Google guys have previously been renting a portion of the hangar for an estimated $2.3 million each year since 2008. Under their new proposal, they will be granted a “master lease” which will allow NASA to continue full ownership, but two-thirds of the space will go solely towards housing the fleet.A year after the current contract started, Google launched its Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal project, aiming to use its massive brains and budget on the green initiative in order to make renewable energy a viable alternative to fossil fuels. "In three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there,” then-Green Energy Czar Bill Weihl told Reuters at the time. Last month the company threw in the towel on the project.