Is anyone really surprised that there are no takers on this? An offer by the H211 to step up to preserve the hangar should have removed the cost argument from the discussion. You’d think that NASA would jump at the chance at free money to make this PR nightmare go away but you would be wrong.

NASA’s behavior sums up what’s wrong with government. An offer was made for private funding to re-skin the hangar. Paying for the re-skinning was the sticking point in the discussions Then money comes along, and what does NASA do? Stall, diddle and procrastinate. This is why people hate government.

Since the summer of 2005, the Navy's position concerning Hangar One was made clear at many public meetings in the Mountain View area. For the past eight years, the reaction from the public continues to be strongly in favor of restoring the Hangar. Despite overwhelming public support for the hangar, a federal buck-passing exercise has been going on for almost a decade. Both the Navy and NASA have been metaphorically tossing the restoration of the hangar around like a hot potato. Everyone gives lip service to restoring the hangar but nobody wants to pay for it. It’s a national disgrace that NASA and the Navy have been blowing off fixing Hangar One.

A proper Restoration Alternative would involved re-skining Hangar One in addition to all of the environmental work described in Alternative 2-Implementation of Institutional Controls. As described in the July 2013 newsletter, the Navy's Alternative 2 is fundamentally flawed. It justifies an already-reached conclusion by ignoring the community's strong desire to see the hangar preserved as stated at numerous public forums since 2005. It's time to discard Alternative 2 and prepare an Alternative 3 that meets the joint goals of protecting the environment and preserving history. These goals need not be mutually exclusive.