Being inside Sustainability Base, a $2- million, 50,000-sq-ft steel-frame building going up at Mountain View’s NASA Ames Research Center at Moffet Federal Airfield, may well be the closet you’ll ever come to visiting the moon.
Construction on the two-story facility, which is designed to be the federal government’s most environmentally sustainable building, began in August. The structure will – or should – consume no more energy than it generates, use 90% less water than other standard buildings and feature smart technology that will actually learn over time how to maximize the base’s systems.