30% off Inspiron laptop purchasesGoogle guys fork over pocket change to land at NASA airfield
It's great to be rich.
I've decided that since Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin are paying $1.3 million annually, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, to NASA to be able to land their uber-luxe Boeing 767 at the space agency's airfield near Mountain View, Calif., I'm going to reach into my own deep pockets so I can land my plane there.
Oh, I'll also agree to carry "scientific equipment" for the agency on my plane, and in return for that favor and paying out the rounding error on my fortune, I hope that NASA will grant me the same privilege that it has given Page and Brin.
This situation is turning out to be a joke. Was it just that Page and Brin were the first to figure out a way to get NASA to let them land their plane at Moffett Federal Airfield, which is otherwise closed to private traffic, but is extremely close to Google's headquarters? After all, sometimes all it takes is figuring out how to ask for something.
But the joke here is the money the two are paying the agency. Seriously. I mean, how many people in Silicon Valley have private planes and could easily part with $1.3 million for the right to use a lightly trafficked runway that's close to home? Well, it's probably not in the thousands, but I bet it's in the hundreds.
And given how bad highway traffic can be on Highway 101, the main artery through Silicon Valley, I bet that most of those people would also be willing to give up a little space on their plane to carry the unspecified scientific equipment so that they could avoid having to deal with the inconvenience of driving in and out of San Jose's international airport.
So, given all that, how is NASA going to make up its mind about which tycoons get to use its runway? Whatever method they choose, I hope they'll pick me.
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel.
would include --at least-- a comparison on how much it cost to
park a 767 in other --similar sized-- airports.
A better article would also avoid the non-sense (in this article)
comments on Highway 101... if they own that plane, they can go
in helicopter to the airfield (cheaper change).
Although of not too much importance, I read that they bought the
plane "second hand". Nobody told me if it was bought at eBay!
Larry Page and Sergey Brin are big supporters of FIRST and have each spoken at the FIRST Championships in Atlanta.
Who is the largest sponsor of FIRST -- NASA.
I can easily imagine the Google Boys and some shooters from NASA were having dinner at Dean's house/mansion one evening talking about FIRST robotics when the subject of Moffit came up... ...the rest is in the papers...
huge deal out of. Honestly, if the airfield is relatively unused and
the Space Agency can pay for the field by letting private planes
land there then why not. This is a smart move on the agency's part
given that their budget has been under scrutiny in the last couple
of years. I wish more of this stuff would happen because then we
wouldn't have to pay as much in taxes. More productivity for
business, less taxes for me....... I call that a win.