AFLCMC Heritage Hangar Page 3

60 Years Ago in AFLCMC History: 

NASA Eyes Hanscom for New Electronic Research Center (31 Jan 1964)

On January 31, 1964, NASA Administrator James E. 

Webb (for whom NASA’s latest space telescope is 

named; pictured below, at left) wrote a letter to the 

Speaker of the 

House of Representatives, John W.

McCormack, notifying him that NASA 

intended to build an 

Electronic Research 

Center in the Boston, 

Massachusetts area.

That same day, partly because New York was sore over 

its not being chosen for the site of the new Center, 

three New York members of Congress (Senators Kenneth B. Keating and Jacob K. Javits, and Representative Alexander Pirnie) suggested to Secretary of the Air 

Force Eugene M. Zuckert that, in light of NASA’s decision, NASA’s new center should be placed at Hanscom 

Field to save money on the construction of a new facility—and Hanscom’s Electronic Systems Division (ESD) 

in turn should be moved to Griffiss AFB in Rome, New 

York, which was already home to the Rome Air Development Center (now AFRL/RI) that specialized in 

ground-based electronics and radar 

systems R&D. The 

Air Force replied 

that it would study 

the suggestion, and discuss it 

with NASA officials. Indeed, a 

few days later, on February 3rd, 

James Webb visited Hanscom 

Field himself, accompanied by Maj Gen Don Ostrander 

(commander of the Office of Aerospace Research) and 

Massachusetts governor Endicott Peabody.

Although it does not appear that the Air Force was considering the proposal too seriously, locals nonetheless 

fought back hard against the suggestion that Hanscom’s ESD depart the region, with the managing editor 

of the Boston Globe, Ian Menzies, even pointing out 

that the NASA facility would bring at most 2,000 jobs, 

while Hanscom’s ESD supported a workforce of 

6,000 and had an FY 

1964 operating budget of 

$850 million (with on average $100 million of that 

budget being contracted 

out to local industries).

NASA eventually constructed its research center in Cambridge—in Kendall Square (the building 

being constructed above, 

and circled at left), within 

walking distance of MIT—

in September 1964, and ESD remained at Hanscom.

Both the center and its location made sense for NASA 

at the time. Its moon landing program was pushing the 

state-of-the-art in miniaturized electronics and its most 

complex computer system, the Apollo Guidance Computer, was designed and built at MIT’s Charles Stark 

Draper Labs. However, NASA’s center operated for 

barely five years, before President Richard Nixon announced its closure in December 1969. Just as the Air 

Force found out after being early sponsors of integrated circuit research, NASA concluded that the commercial electronics industry advanced the relevant technology without the intervention of its specialized center. 

NASA transferred the building to the new Department 

of Transportation (for one dollar). As the John A. Volpe 

Building, named in honor of the Secretary of Transportation, it became the Transportation Systems Center—a 

role that continues today, 

though the original building 

was just replaced in September 2023 by the new 

John A. Volpe National 

Transportation Systems 

Center (right). (Photos: 

NASA; The Boston Globe, 

12 Feb 1964; U.S. Department of Transportation)

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January 29, 2024 www.aflcmc.af.mil/NEWS/Article-Display/Article/3659330/this-week-in-aflcmc-history-january-29-february-4-2024/