Moffett Federal Airfield (IATA: NUQ, ICAO: KNUQ, FAA LID: NUQ), also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale.

The hangars were constructed when the US Navy established ten lighter-than-air bases across the United States during World War II as part of the coastal defense plan.

Five of the original seventeen of these wooden hangars still exist: one at Moffett Field, one at Tustin, California, one at Tillamook, Oregon, and two at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

The location proved to be ideal for an airport, since the area is often clear while other parts of the San Francisco Bay are covered in fog.

The naval air station (NAS) was authorized by an Act of Congress, signed by President Herbert Hoover on 12 February 1931.

[11] The base was originally named Airbase Sunnyvale CAL as it was thought that calling it Mountain View would cause officials to fear airships colliding with mountainsides.

After the Macon crashed in the Pacific Ocean on 12 February 1935, the Navy considered closing NAS Sunnyvale and Moffett Field at due to its high cost of operations.

The Navy wanted the Army out of North Island as it needed to expand NAS San Diego as a training airfield for its growing number of aircraft carrier pilots.

With the subtle assistance of President Franklin Roosevelt, a former assistant secretary of the Navy, a complex arrangement of facilities realignment was made by the War Department which transferred NAS Sunnyvale and Moffett Field to Army jurisdiction and Rockwell Field to the Navy in October 1935, becoming NAS North Island.

[15] As an aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Navy wanted to use Moffett Field and the large dirigible hangar for blimp operations along with Pacific Coast.

Again the inter-service rivalry was overruled by the War Department, citing the Navy's need for coastal defense a priority and ordered the Army to move its training headquarters to Hamilton Field in Marin County, north of San Francisco.

Due to the priority of metal for use in building war materials such as airplanes, ships and tanks, these two hangars were built from wood and concrete.

Until the demise of the USSR and for some time thereafter, daily anti-submarine, maritime reconnaissance, Fleet support, and various training sorties flew out from NAS Moffett Field to patrol along the Pacific coastline, while Moffett's other squadrons and aircraft periodically deployed to other Pacific, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf bases for periods of up to six months.

[16] In 1960, the nearby Air Force Satellite Test Center (STC), was created adjacent to (on the SE corner of) NAS Moffett Field.

On 1 July 1994, NAS Moffett Field was closed as a naval air station and turned over to the NASA Ames Research Center.

Since being decommissioned as a primary military installation, part of Moffett has been made accessible to the public, including a cordoned portion of the interior of the massive Hangar One.

Moffett is regularly used by the California Air National Guard, NASA, Lockheed Martin Space Systems (commercial satellite manufacturer), the Google founders for their private planes, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department for their helicopter STAR 1, and Air Force One during presidential visits to the Bay Area.

The "orange peel" doors, weighing 500 tons (511.88 tonnes) each, are moved by their own 150 horsepower motors operated via an electrical control panel.

During the brief period that the Macon was based at Moffett, Hangar One accommodated not only the giant airship but several smaller, non-rigid blimps simultaneously.

In 2003, plans to convert Hangar One to a space and science center were put on hold with the discovery that the structure was leaking toxic chemicals into the sediment in wetlands bordering San Francisco Bay.

The chemicals originated in the lead paint and toxic materials, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), used to coat the hangar.

[22] In August 2008, the Navy proposed simply stripping the toxic coating from the hangar and leaving the skeleton after spraying it with a preservative.

An episode of the Discovery Channel TV show MythBusters used one of the hangars to disprove the myth that it is not possible to fold a sheet of paper in half more than seven times.

Other Mythbusters episodes have utilized the hangar to test myths such as "Inflating a football with helium allows longer kick distances" and "Airworthy aircraft can be constructed of concrete."

[30] Five of the original 17 of the wooden hangars still exist: Moffett Field (1), Tustin, California (1), Tillamook, Oregon (1), and Lakehurst, New Jersey (2).

Many of the buildings at Moffett Field which once supported its active military presence have been abandoned and left standing due to asbestos contamination within the structures .

[citation needed] AirNav.com reports that "Moffett Field is now available to corporate and charter aircraft (jet fuel only)", with prior permission required for landing.

[36] Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures has retained contractor Avports LLC to manage the facilities[1] and provide services as a fixed-base operator (FBO).