Re: Cambridge Developments
Volpe was originally NASA's Electronic Research Center. IIRC, a sop thrown to Boston after Boston lost out to Houston for the Manned Spacecraft Center.
Some of the work done at Volpe is related to transportation security. That aside, after Timothy McVeigh, lots of Federal buildings are now protected by setbacks and/or bollards.
If Volpe were to leave Cambridge, it would be to another part of the country. Palo Alto or Champaign Urbana, or Austin.
As for students interested in working at Volpe, these are the career fields:
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Stell -- you almost got the history right
Volpe was the NASA Electronics Research Center -- that is why the big amount of Cambridge that was leveled --- essentially all of where Cambridge Center is located plus the existing Volpe Site
had JFK lived and been re-elected the majority of the money which went to Houston and some of what went to JPL in Passadena and Ames in Palo Alto would have gone to Cambridge
Indeed because of the national mission critical nature of the work at the ERC -- much of what became to be called Silicon Valley would probably been located in Cambridge, Watertown, Waltham
the Johnson -- re-structuring of the Kennedy Administration took the money and poured it into Houston where Lyndon had a "business relationship" with George Brown (founder of Brown and Root and owner of the swamp land sold to NASA in Clear Lake -- aka "Houston we have a problem")
ERC hung on as a remnant (actually doing quite well) until Pres. Nixon rewarded John Volpe for being the first Secretary of Transportation -- Republican Members of the Mass and other New England Congressional and Senate delegations were instrumental in orchestrating the conversion of ERC to DOT rather than the closing and transfer of all the money to the rest of the country
from te NASA Histoy site:
http://history.nasa.gov/erc.html
Electronics Research Center
NASA's Electronics Research Center (ERC), was located in Cambridge, MA, across the street from MIT at Kendall Square (formerly Technology Square). The ERC opened in September 1964, taking over the administration of contracts, grants, and other NASA business in New England from the antecedent North Eastern Operations Office (created in July 1962), and closed in June 1970. It served to develop the space agency's in-house expertise in electronics during the Apollo era. A second key function was to serve as a graduate and post-graduate training center within the framework of a regional government-industry-university alliance. The ERC was just as important a NASA field center as the Langley Research Center or the Marshall Space Flight Center. By fiscal 1968, NASA planned for the ERC to be employing 1,600 professional and technical workers plus another 500 in administrative and support positions (Kelley, n.p.).
The location of the ERC allowed it to take advantage of the close proximity to MIT and (to a lesser extent) Harvard, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory, and the electronics industry located along Route 128. At the time, the technical, industrial, and commercial aspects of microelectronics were ascendant, especially in the Boston-Cambridge technopolis.
Research at the ERC was conducted in ten different laboratories: space guidance, systems, computers, instrumentation research, space optics, power conditioning and distribution, microwave radiation, electronics components, qualifications and standards, and control and information systems. Researchers investigated such areas as microwave and laser communications; the miniaturization and radiation resistance of electronic components; guidance and control systems; photovoltaic energy conversion; information display devices; instrumentation; and computers and data processing.
From the official history of the Volpe Center
http://www.volpe.dot.gov/about/history.html
History and John A. Volpe
The Volpe Center was established in 1970 to provide analytical, scientific, and engineering support to the newly established U.S. Department of Transportation. From the beginning, the Center was envisioned as a place where a broad range of skills could be focused on major issues that cut across the traditional modal structure of the transportation enterprise.
Housed on the campus of NASA's former Electronics Research Center, the Center opened as the Transportation Systems Center thanks to growing congressional awareness of the need to apply advanced technology to national transportation problems and the efforts of then-U.S. Secretary of Transportation John A. Volpe, as well as those of the Massachusetts congressional delegation. In 1990, the Center was renamed in John A. Volpe's honor.
In the three decades since the Volpe Center was established, we have addressed major national and international transportation issues related to safety, security, environment, mobility, and economic growth and trade. By applying our unique combination of technical knowledge and expertise, we work to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and responsiveness of our clients in carrying out their missions to transport people and goods safely and efficiently...."
As it was the iconic phisiological monitors taped to the chests of the early astronauts, the monitors which measured and controlled the atmosphere in the capsules and suits were all developed at ERC Cambridge
Of course NASA also funded the developement of the Apollo Guidance Computer down the street at the Instrumentation Lab of MIT Prof. Draper -- now the eponymous Draper Lab
Volpe is noted among other things for: the metal detector arch at the airport; the traffic monitor / signal control loops in the road; and the technology enabling Fedex to track your package from Amazon.com's warehouse to your back porch
As an asside thanks to the bungling of the Mass Congressional delegation -- with the closing of the Air Force Lab (originally the Air Force Cambridge Reserch Lab) at Hanscom -- the Volpe Center, the Army Natick Soldier Center and the Institute for Soldieer Nanotechnology @ MIT are the last remnants of a once major Federal R&D presence in the Boston Area
