Name change would be a giant leap in recognition
LOS ANGELES — Neil Armstrong’s name is attached to a lunar crater, an asteroid, more than a dozen schools and a museum, but not a single NASA facility is christened in honor of the first man to walk on the moon.
All that could soon change on the fringes of the Mojave Desert, where leaders at the space agency’s top f light research center are mulling the consequences of a proposed name change at the place where Armstrong was a test pilot.
The push by some in Congress to strike the name of former NASA executive Hugh Dryden from the facility has raised questions: Is it justified to substitute one accomplished figure for another? At a time of squeezed budgets, is it worth the cost? And, besides: How long before the next space hotshot upends the world’s first moonwalker?
Managers at the Dryden Flight Research Center have no say in what they’re called — final approval rests with the U.S. House and Senate — and so they have left the soul-searching to others.
“I’m happy with the name Dryden Flight Research Center, but I’ll be equally happy with Armstrong,” center Director David McBride said. “Both men were leaders in the field.”
It wouldn’t be cheap. Welcome signs bearing the Dryden logo would have to be updated. Research aircraft would need their sides repainted. Letterhead and pamphlets would have to be recycled. And then there’s the obligatory dedication ceremony.
Dryden officials have not calculated a total makeover cost but don’t foresee extra funds, meaning they would have to work within their $65 million operating budget to pay for the changes.
It wouldn’t be the first rebranding of a NASA facility.
In 1999, the Lewis Research Center in Ohio — named for George Lewis, the first executive officer of NASA’s predecessor agency — was changed to the John H. Glenn Research Center, after the first American to orbit Earth and former senator.
A name switch often occurs to raise a center’s profile and is not unlike what happens at universities, which shuffle the nameplate on buildings and stadiums as memories fade and institutions try to cash in on a bigger celebrity or generous donor.
The thought of being affiliated with the Apollo 11 astronaut, who died last year, has excited area business owners, who believe the change could help them better promote the region to visitors.
“Neil Armstrong is much more recognizable. No disrespect to Mr. Dryden,” said Kimberly Maevers, who heads the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance.
Dryden was a child prodigy who enrolled in college at age 14. An aerospace engineer, he served as director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor to NASA, and later as the space agency’s first deputy administrator. He died in 1965; four years later, Armstrong stepped on the moon.