GOOG and nanotech plans:
Google bubbling over with plans for outer space
DEADLINE EXTENDED FOR RESEARCH PARK
By Renee Koury
Mercury News
Posted on Thu, Feb. 02, 2006
If you think Google has a broad reach across the globe now, wait until it launches into outer space.
The Mountain View-based Internet giant is expanding its plans for potential collaborations with NASA scientists at Moffett Field to include research on everything from private commercial rocket launches to search engines in the classroom to nanotechnology in orbit.
With new ideas still sprouting, NASA agreed Wednesday to give Google more time to submit a detailed plan to build a large research park and collaborate with NASA scientists at Moffett Field. Wednesday's deadline for laying out plans was extended until May 31.
``Everyone got so excited with all of the possibilities for collaboration, we decided we needed more time to put this plan together,' said Michael Marlaire, NASA's director of external affairs and development.
The Internet company, which has made a fortune doling out information about others, has said little about its own proposal for the 1-million-square-foot research park.
``That collaboration seems to be moving right along,' Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Tuesday. ``We have our R&D plan agreed to. We are beginning to fund a bunch of very interesting research initiatives.' Schmidt declined to offer specifics.
Asked about the planned buildings themselves, Schmidt added, ``They're still working on it.'
But a memorandum of understanding signed by NASA and Google last November laid out four general areas in which the company might collaborate with space agency scientists: large-scale data management; connecting smaller computers for supercomputing; converging nanotech and biotechnology; and helping launch private commercial space travel.
Over the past two months, Marlaire said, additional ideas sparked between NASA scientists and Google geeks. The two sides are excited by the possibilities for blending the space agency's massive amounts of data with Google's flair for funneling facts onto the screen.
Besides extending the deadline, the two sides agreed Wednesday to add a new component to the collaboration: involving Google in the many education programs held at Moffett Field. Those programs bring thousands of schoolchildren and college students to Moffett campus near Mountain View every year to learn about astronomy and other scientific missions.
Google might begin by tutoring classroom teachers and students on the best ways to gain access to information off the Internet. The arrangement could eventually encompass students learning how Google does business.
``We have kids here who say, `I want to grow up to be an astronaut,' Marlaire said, ``and maybe they'll say, `I want to grow up to be a Googler.' '
Google is also intrigued by the idea of helping NASA in its mission to help private companies launch into space for commercial enterprises. NASA already has technology partnerships with about two dozen small aerospace companies across the country, Marlaire said.
Among their possible enterprises: to offer commercial tours in orbit, create an extreme sports league that would play in zero gravity and build space labs for biotechnology research.
Google could play multiple roles in that effort.
The company could help develop systems for quickly disseminating data aboard rockets or between spacecraft and Earth.
Google also might help develop nanotech information systems to lighten space crafts so they can launch more easily and cheaply than heavier systems, Marlaire said.
Meanwhile, city and county leaders, who aren't involved in the planning, are waiting for word about the Google expansion.
``Sure, it would be nice to know what they're planning to do,' Mountain View City Councilman Greg Perry said.
``But we have only limited control over what happens on federal property.'
Most were glad that high-flying Google appeared to be deepening its roots in Silicon Valley by trying to expand to Moffett.
The Mountain View firm has been growing rapidly, adding hundreds of new workers worldwide every month. The new park at Moffett would triple the company's size in the valley, from its current 500,000 square feet to a total 1.5 million.
Company officials previously said Google would keep its current headquarters near Moffett and expand into the new buildings. The proposed campus would also include housing.
``You travel around the world and say Mountain View, and no one knows what that is until you say Google is here,' City Councilman Matt Neely said.
Even concerns Google might skate on property taxes by locating on tax-exempt federal land seem to have faded: County Assessor Larry Stone said only a small part of the proposed Google complex would fall within a ``federal enclave,' excused from paying taxes.
The enclaves are parcels set aside by the federal government before 1939 as a sort of tax free zone.
Commercial enterprises located on federal lands outside these safe zones must pay taxes for using the property, Stone said.
Marlaire said Google would be among several tenants in a huge research park that already includes the University of California, Carnegie Mellon University, San Jose State and about three dozen small companies that collaborate with NASA scientists.
Google's presence, he said, is intended to bolster the space agency's mission to create what planners hope will become the region's most innovative research park.
``You know how dynamic they are,' Marlaire said.
``Everything over at Google moves at about 2,000 miles an hour, with new ideas coming every minute.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mercury News Staff Writer Michael Bazeley contributed to this report. Contact Renee Koury at rkoury@mercurynews.com or (650) 688-7598. |
