Stefan Mileschin

The internet is all abuzz with the fact that US Sen. Charles Grassley (R, Iowa) is seeking an audit of the arrangements between NASA, the Pentagon, and Google.

H211 LLC , a holding company, is apparently the entity that Google executives formed to handle their dealings with NASA on their fleet of aircraft. H211 LLC signed an agreement with NASA to lease space at Ames Research - Moffett Air Park, located in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. for $1.3 million per year to fly research missions for NASA at their own expense.

At the time, that sounded like an excellent quid pro quo. Additional H211 LLC would obtain a Dornier Alpha fighter jet which would be modified to carry specialty NASA test gear. I wrote about this for Mike Magee's ITExaminer in 2008. At that time there were grumblings by the local residents concerned that additional flights would mean additional noise.

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