Bare bones dim sum WEEKEND | 21 JUNE 5, 2015 VOLUME 23, NO. 19
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New NASA Ames director shoots for the stars PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, SPACE EXPLORATION ON THE AGENDA FOR EUGENE TU By Mark Noack
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he year 1984 was a very different time at NASA. Space was emerging as a new battlefront in the Cold War. The United States was championing plans to launch anti-missile satellites into orbit. Meanwhile, President Ronald Reagan used his State of the Union address that year to highlight a vision to one day build an international space station.
It was the same year that Eugene Tu, a mechanical engineering sophomore from the University of California at Berkeley, started his first internship at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View. He was the new kid joining the computational fluid dynamics program, then a relatively new team tasked with simulating flight scenarios with computers. See NASA AMES, page 6
Civil rights group claims racial bias in MVLA high schools ADMINISTRATORS DENY CHARGE THAT MINORITY STUDENTS ARE PLACED IN LOWER-LEVEL MATH CLASSES By Kevin Forestieri
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Bay Area civil rights advocacy group released a report late last month claiming the Mountain View-Los
Altos Union High School District is among several school districts in the area that disproportionately place minority students in lower-level math classes in ninth grade, leaving them behind their
MICHELLE LE
Eugene Tu, the new director of NASA Ames Research Center, chats with Associate Director Steven Zornetzer. On the wall behind him are portraits of past NASA Ames directors.
peers and reducing their chances of getting accepted into college. A 37-page report by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR) found that Latino and African-American students are far more likely to get placed in algebra than their white and Asian peers, despite the fact that the students meet or exceed standards that would allow them to take geometry in their freshman year. The civil rights group spe-
Superintendent Barry Groves said the district doubled the number of Latino students taking the more rigorous math classes since it adopted an open access policy. cifically points to the Mountain View-Los Altos district, where the 24 percent of Latinos and the 2 percent of African-Americans who make up the student body
are “disproportionately” placed in algebra in their freshman year. The exact number of students See RACIAL BIAS, page 13
Bubble hasn’t burst for Google’s futuristic domes CITY-OWNED SITE COULD BE FIRST FOR AMBITIOUS DESIGN By Mark Noack
G COURTESY OF GOOGLE
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oogle’s vision for a futuristic campus of bubble buildings hasn’t burst. The search-engine company last week unveiled plans to bring what could be the first of its sensational dome-shaped buildings
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to a little-discussed property at Charleston East. The 18.6-acre site, located at the corner of Charleston Road and Shoreline Boulevard, has long been in Google’s sights for a future expansion. For years, the company has leased the property from the city of Moun-
tain View, with plans to someday build a 595,000-square-foot office building. “We always knew they had the entitlements to build there,” said Mayor John McAlister. “I guess they figured now was the time to See DOMES, page 9