California Vies as Site for Proposed NASA Complex : Aerospace: The state is bidding against at least two others for $2-billion pair of wind tunnels that would test aircraft.
A cross-country economic competition is shaping up between California and at least two other states over the site of a proposed $2-billion wind tunnel complex for testing commercial aircraft.
The financially pressed National Aeronautics and Space Administration has not even won White House or congressional approval for the project, but NASA administrator Daniel Goldin got an early sales pitch Monday from California lawmakers.
The pair of futuristic wind tunnels, designed to replace part of the nation’s antiquated network of 35 such facilities, would be high on technology but low on permanent jobs. About 200 full-time positions would result, Goldin said. The project would also generate up to 2,000 construction jobs.
But the facility is intended to bolster the nation’s big plane builders, Boeing Co. and McDonnell Douglas Corp., in what has become a heated global competition in the commercial aircraft market.
Wind tunnels use enormous fans to push air over the surface of plane models, simulating flight conditions and testing aircraft designs that are created on computer screens. If built in California rather than one of the competing states--which include Virginia and Vice President Al Gore’s home state of Tennessee--the wind tunnels would be erected at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Mountain View, where nine older tunnels already operate.
California’s congressional delegation, the office of Gov. Pete Wilson, key legislators such as Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, and Bay Area companies--notably Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which would supply power to the tunnels--have been lobbying NASA to build the facility at Moffett.
Despite the modest number of direct jobs involved, the new tunnels would presumably strengthen long-term competitive prospects for the U.S. aerospace industry, heavily concentrated in California, where defense cutbacks have caused severe damage to the economy.
“It is an important step in converting California’s economy from one which relies on defense spending to one which thrives on high-technology,” said Assemblywoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), chairwoman of the state’s Defense Conversion Task Force.
California has been roundly criticized for tardiness in competing with other states for jobs in high-technology and other fields, and more than 700 firms of all kinds have moved facilities out of the state in recent years.
This time, the state has jumped in before there is even a project to compete for, Brown said. Incentives to lure the tunnels here are under study.
“We haven’t even decided to build the wind tunnels,” Goldin said, “but I’m happy to see some signs of life here in California. A number of years ago, California wouldn’t engage in anything like this.”
Companies such as McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Lockheed, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric have lobbied for years for new wind tunnels. Though NASA has historically footed the bill for such aeronautic infrastructure, the agency’s budget was slashed 30% last year, and it is leaning on private industry to help pay for the new tunnels.
