NASA has released the text of the agreement between itself and H211 LLC, a company controlled by Google’s top brass. The agreement allows Google’s founders to park their private jets at the generally closed-to-private-aircraft Moffett Field in exchange for an annual fee of $1.3 million and for allowing the space agency to put instruments on the planes for scientific experiments.

The release was in response to a request filed by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

The agreement, however, shows that aside from the Google’s existing private jets of two Gulfstream Vs and one Boeing 767, a Boeing 757 is expected to start flying out of Moffett Field beginning November.

“When we negotiated this deal with H211 LLC, they requested that we build into the arrangement a 757, which at the time they had not purchased or leased,” Steve Zornetzer, associate director for institutions and research at the NASA Ames Research Center told The New York Times.

Earlier, Zornetzer described the agreement as a “win-win situation.”

“It was an opportunity for us to defray some of the fixed costs we have to maintain the airfield as well as to have flights of opportunity for our science missions,” Zornetzer said. “It seemed like a win-win situation.”

Having four private jets for Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt may be viewed by some as a sign of indulgence. But apparently, the planes will help them move more fluidly, as well as reduce the risk that all three of them might die in a single, tragic plane crash.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 8:53 pm under Google.

Read more entries by Ruben Francia.
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