# Moffett Field **Domain:** Place / Aerospace / Silicon Valley **Doc Type:** Canonical Place Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Moffett Field** is a historic airfield in Mountain View, California, now associated with NASA Ames Research Center and federal research facilities. ## Evolutionary Nexus NASA Ames researchers working at Moffett Field used evolutionary algorithms to design the X-band antenna flown on the Space Technology 5 mission. [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] treats that event as the literal manufacture of flight hardware through simulated variation and selection. The site's importance is institutional rather than magical proximity. Aerospace requirements supplied a demanding fitness function, fabrication and testing converted simulated candidates into hardware, and spaceflight supplied environmental validation. ## Continuity Context Moffett joins computation to embodiment. A design is not operational merely because it exists in software; it must survive translation into matter and function under the receiving environment's constraints. ## Sources / Provenance - NASA Technical Reports Server, evolved ST5 antenna: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20040152147 - NASA Ames Research Center: https://www.nasa.gov/ames/ ## See Also [[wiki/NASA Ames Research Center|NASA Ames Research Center]], [[wiki/Evolved Antenna|Evolved Antenna]], [[wiki/Space Technology 5|Space Technology 5]], [[wiki/Receiving Substrate|Receiving Substrate]]