‘Beacon’ Restored: Hangar One at Moffett Federal Airfield Reclaims Its Glory

Mission accomplished.

Hangar One, the airship hangar at Moffett Federal Airfield (KNUQ) in Santa Clara County, California, has been restored. The hangar was built in 1933 to house the USSMacon, a 146-foot-tall and 785-foot-long dirigible operated by the U.S. Navy. The building dominates the landscape of the airport that lies on the south end of San Francisco Bay.

KNUQ occupies approximately 3,097 acres and has two parallel runways: 14L/32R, measuring 9,197 feet by 200 feet, and 14R/32L, measuring 8,122 feet by 200 feet.

When Hangar One was constructed, little was known about the toxic nature of the building materials of the day such as lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were human-made oil-based chemicals, and asbestos. As the decades passed, more was learned about the impact of these substances on the health of living things, and by the 1980s the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that Moffett Field was contaminated with hazardous materials that were polluting the surrounding communities and the wetlands to the north of the airport.

Part of the property was occupied by NASA’s Ames Research Center. The Navy operated the base until 1994, when it was closed.

“In 2003 NASA, which received most of Moffett from the Navy after base closure in 1994, discovered that PCBs from Hangar One were polluting the Moffett wetlands,” said Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, in a 2022 interview with FLYING.

Siegel had been involved in the cleanup of Moffett since 1991, first as a member of the Technical Review Committee and then as a member of the Restoration Advisory Board (RAB). 

“As a result, the Navy coated the hangar, but that didn’t last,” he said. “In 2005, the Navy told the Restoration Advisory Board that it wanted to demolish the hangar.”

That plan prompted great outcry from the public that brought about the creation of the Save Hangar One Committee. In 2015 the property was leased to Google Planetary Ventures, and as part of its 60-year lease, the company agreed to restore Hangar One to historical accuracy while using environmentally safer materials.

The first step was stripping away the exterior covering. For many years the metal skeleton of the hangar loomed over the land like a giant bird cage.

“It is impressive how sensitive they were to the historic nature of the hangar,” said Steve Williams, who has been part of the Save Hangar One movement since 1997 when he wanted to relocate his private airplane from Hayward Executive Airport (KHWD) to Moffett because it was closer to his home. “The skin of the hangar is sort of a corrugated metal like you would see on a building from the 1930s.” Today the airport has a LTA (lighter than air) company with a facility on site, and NASA still has a foothold there. Adjacent to the hangar in building 126 is the Moffett Field Museum (MFM), which contains artifacts from the days when the airport was used by the military. 

Jeff Wasel, executive administrator of the museum, stressed the MFM is not part of Hangar One.

“They are separate entities,” said Wasel, adding that he’s happy the restoration of Hangar One is complete. “It’s a beacon in the Bay Area. It’s like a cathedral. When I was coming home from [military] deployments and I saw the hangar, I knew I was home.”

Google Planetary Ventures’ plans for the space have not been released to the public yet.