One of NASA's most ambitious new projects isn't in space,
but on the ground.
The agency is planning to build its most environmentally-friendly
building at its Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. The structure, to
be called Sustainability
Base, will likely be the
"greenest" building in the federal government, said Steve Zornetzer,
Associate Center Director at NASA Ames.
The ceremonial groundbreaking on the $20.6 million building
is set for Aug. 25, and construction is expected to be complete around November
2011.
The name for the new facility is an homage to the Tranquility
Base from the Apollo 11 moon landing of July 20, 1969, when NASA astronauts
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land and walk on the
lunar surface. NASA celebrated the 40th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11
flight last month.
"The very first image of this blue orb that we call
Earth came from NASA," Zornetzer said. "When the Apollo astronauts
looked back and saw the Earth...it was such an astounding image that it's really
served as almost a touchstone for the whole environmental movement."
Smart building, green building
Utilizing solar panels, fuel cells, water recycling systems,
and even technology derived from NASA's human and robotic space
exploration missions, the building will aim for a LEED (Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design) platinum plus certification.
Sustainability Base is designed to consume no net energy -
in other words, it will power itself. And compared to conventional buildings of
equal size, it will use 90 percent less potable water.
"I decided that if we're going to build an energy
efficient building, why don't we build the most energy efficient building
we can possibly build, in the spirit of what we need to do for this country,"
Zornetzer told SPACE.com.
The centerpiece of the building's cutting-edge technology is
its intelligent control system, which is based on ones originally developed for
NASA spacecraft. A computer inside Sustainability Base will connect to the Internet
to call up weather forecasts for the local area to help it plan environmental control.
It will have access to electronic calendars of workers in the building, so it
can predict how many people will be at a given meeting, and adjust heating and
cooling systems appropriately.
Instead of air conditioning, Sustainability Base is designed
to cool itself from geothermal wells that route naturally cooled water from
underneath the ground through pipes and cooling panels inside the building.
The computer will also control the windows, so when a chill
nighttime breeze flows near, the building can take advantage of it too.
NASA also plans to encourage occupants to try to improve
their own levels of energy efficiency, which the building will keep track of
and report to people on their laptops.
"We want people in the building to compete, to try to
optimize their own energy efficiency so they can get the greatest amount of
work done with the least amount of watts," Zornetzer said.
Sustainability Base will serve mainly as an office building,
but may also house some scientific research and engineering.
The cost of the building will be provided by a NASA program
called Renovation by Replacement, which aims to replace antiquated facilities
with more modern, energy efficient ones. The building was designed by the AECOM
and William McDonough + Partners architectural firms. Swinerton Inc. will carry
out the construction.
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