I don't think it is right for the Federal government to lease the land to a few super rich fellows so they have the convenience to fly their airplanes. The land belongs to the public. A few tens of millions is nothing to these super riches. But the public loses a precious chance to use the prime land to generate far more economic value.

This is just so wrong. A few vocal history buffs have made all of Mountain View and Sunnyvale people potentially lose billions of dollars.

@Fred: How would that work? Locals would never tolerate a major use like cargo planes. Converting it all to some other use and removing the airstrip altogether would require infinitely expensive cleanup and environmental impact gridlock forever. The only feasible possibility is what they are proposing. You complain about use by rich people, but rich people are the ONLY ones with resources to put it to use.

I'd propose to tear down Hanger One. Let Mountain View City lease the land to build a "University City", that is a college campus with several "mini colleges". The City can then lease these mini campuses to world-renowned universities that are interested in setting up foothold in Silicon Valley, much like Carnegie Mellon University site in NASA Ames.

Silicon Valley is the center of high tech. I believe there will be huge interest from many universities, both nationally as well as abroad, to set up a campus here, so that their students can have a chance to do a "study aboard" program. Moffet Field is the ideal place for such campuses.

In such way the land not only generates a lot more income for the government, but also serves a great purpose of education, much better than just serving a few billionaires.

A "University City" will also greatly benefit Google because it provides the opportunity for Google to access top college students around the world. A fantastic staging ground for recruiting best of the talents into Silicon Valley.

Imagine, from Oxford to Tsinghua, from Yale to University of Tokyo, the world best talents will have a place to study and do internship here, at Mountain View. Many of them will eventually settle here. This is a golden opportunity for Silicon Valley.

We, the citizens of Mountain View, have already voted to not have Moffett Field turned into a private airfield. Don't any of the new MV City Council members remember that? Looks like it's going to turn into Google Field without any noise or restrictions. As it is, Google is already flying around the clock. I'm beginning to suspect that our City Council members are receiving heavy donations from Google.

I agree with Ron as it being the only thing that makes sense. The community comments about turning it into a housing site, schools, parks etc. do not understand that it is a SUPERFUND site. It has contamination that makes the only viable use what it is now. The housing market, schools and jobs are here because of these silicon companies. I do not care if they are the only ones using it especially since they pay for it.

It will all be underwater soon with all the global warming. So build high if you are going to build.

I agree that Moffett is public lands and should be used to benefit as many people as possible. That said if it was leased on a 10 year lease then the proceeds could be used to clean-up and start the redevelopment of Moffett for the benefit of everyone.

I would like to see the City of Mountain View bid on this and they can sublet to Google etc. That way we have more control over the way forward.

Google planes flying all hours of the night are driving me crazy! I like Google - have family that work there and think generally they've been good to Mountain View - but I'm tired of waking up to a plane flying over my house at 2:30am (I've checked the clock). We did not have this problem when we first moved in and Google was not using Moffett. At that time of night the planes are very loud. The current level of air traffic during the day is ok with me, but the night flights, even from what are probably small exec planes is too much. Can't we have some reasonable time restrictions? No flights between 11pm and 6am at least!

The City of Mountain View has absolutely no control over what the federal government does with Moffett. The council may be getting donations or not but that doesn't affect NASA's decisions.

You must be new. As the article says, Moffett used to be 50 times busier than it is now.

This is an absolute prime location. Superfund legacy won't deter interested developers to fund the cleanup, because the economic potential is astronomical.

A Superfund label does not condemn the site forever. In fact, the huge Superfund site in Mountain View, around Ellis/MiddleField/Whishman (MEW site), hundreds of acres, has been completely transformed into several grandiose, high-class office campuses. There is no reason that same cannot be done for Hanger One site.

Hangar One restoration: Actually it is already too late. It won't be the original building, just a replica.

"So I was traveling in New England and some old farmer tells me that he owns George Washington's axe, the one that cut down the cherry tree. So, I'm thinking, some old goat farmer is the owner of a priceless and historic piece of history? So I ask the farmer to see the axe. I notice that it has a fiberglass handle which is labeled "Made in China". The stainless steel head said "Made in Pakistan". I asked him if George Washington had ever been to Pakistan and the farmer told me "Since George owned it, the handle has been replaced 12 times and the head 4 times, but it really is still George Washington's axe".

Perhaps the only historical buildings left in California are the old Spanish missions.

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