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DECEMBER 18, 2009 VOLUME 17, NO. 50
INSIDE: WEEKEND | PAGE 18
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MountainViewOnline.com
High speed rail meeting draws 200 residents By Daniel DeBolt
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MICHELLE LE
Ames historian Jack Boyd stands in front of the world’s largest wind tunnel, known as “The 80 by 120,” at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field.
70 years of wonder at NASA Ames SPACE AGENCY GIVES VOICE AN EXCLUSIVE TOUR OF FACILITIES KEY TO NATION’S AERONAUTICAL RESEARCH mans in aeronautical research. In 1941, the first wind tunnel constructed at Ames was immediately put to use working on World War II fighter planes,
features a massive air intake mouth that opens to the Bay’s wetlands. Engineering t will be 70 years this Sunday since a marvels themselves, the wind tunnels are small group of aeronautical researchbasically mazes of tunnels of varying size, ers, with national some with steel reinforcedefense in mind, took over ments several inches thick to part of Moffett Field. The withstand pressure caused year was 1939, and the U.S. Today, behind the security gate at NASA Ames, by incredible air speeds. government was watching used to have one 2,500 employees are contributing research on that“We closely as Nazi Germany went to mach 15,” said built up an unprecedented NASA Ames historian Jack numerous technologies and sciences. air arsenal. Boyd, who began his career The resulting facility has as a “wind tunnel jockey” been on the cutting edge of at Ames in 1947. (Mach aeronautics research ever since. including the P-51 Mustang, which had 15 is equal to 11,418 miles per hour of air NASA Ames was built by the National an aerodynamically induced vibration speed.) Advisory Committee for Aeronautics fixed by Ames researchers. Today, behind the security gate at NASA (NASA’s forerunner until 1958) as the The vast complex of wind tunnels at See NASA, page 16 U.S. sought to compete with the Ger- Ames includes the world’s largest, which By Daniel DeBolt
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GOINGS ON 22 | MARKETPLACE 23 | MOVIES 21 | REAL ESTATE 26 | VIEWPOINT 17
he city held its first-ever public meeting dedicated entirely to the subject of high speed rail, drawing 200 people to the Senior Center on a Thursday evening for a discussion on ways the system will affect Mountain View and its residents. The high speed rail system, approved by California voters in 2008, will be “one of the largest public works projects in the state for a very long time,” said Cathy Lazarus, the city’s public works director. Locally, the system would add two additional tracks along the Peninsula’s Caltrain corridor for trains reaching speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Last week’s meeting included several presentations followed by a question-and-answer session. Stealing the show was Bob Doty, rail transportation director for Caltrain, who answered questions about high speed rail issues with often humorous comments. As someone who managed high speed rail projects in Asia and Europe, he said, the U.S. is still seen elsewhere as a “developing country” when it comes to transportation. Council member Mike Kasperzak talked See HSR, page 9
Parents: We’d sue over cuts to special ed By Kelsey Mesher
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n item to reduce aide hours in the Mountain View Whisman School District’s autism program was again pulled from the agenda during the board of trustees’ regular meeting last week, a move which surprised the several dozen parents who had come to lobby against the cuts. Though the board did not vote on the proposal — which would reduce the hours and benefits of 11 autism aides See SPECIAL ED, page 10