Since that time, Vice Presidents Mondale, Bush, Quayle and Gore have resided there with their families."They areinterested in using the dishes for possible applications for what is known as'space situational awareness' that is an important arena for the Department ofDefense (DoD)," Welch told .Īccordingto Welch, the ATA is the ideal technology to help get a handle on this sincethe nation's investment in communications, GPS, weather and of course, defenseconstellations of satellites not to mention the dangers posed to theInternational Space Station, Shuttle and future human spaceflight.
Navy's Chief of Naval Operations, and was named "Admiral's House." In 1974, the house was designated as the first official residence of the Vice President of the United States. A typical nineteenth-century country home in the Queen Anne style, it was built for the Superintendent of the United States Naval Observatory in 1893 on lands that had originally been owned by Margaret and Cornelius Barber, wealthy Georgetown landowners. The Vice President's Residence at the Naval Observatory is a large, white-painted, brick Victorian house on the southeast corner of 34th Street and Massachusetts Avenue in the District of Columbia. The old Observatory in Foggy Bottom was declared a National Historic landmark in 1966. Along with the new programs such as daily monitoring of solar activity, the old functions of time keeping and telescopic observations were kept intact when the Observatory moved to the new site. The move not only provided better astronomical observing conditions, but also provided an opportunity to rethink old scientific programs and propose new ones. At that time, this rural site was well outside the city in the countryside above Georgetown. Naval Observatory moved to its present location. In 1893, after nearly 50 years at the site on the Potomac River, the U.S. Unhealthy conditions in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood had taken their toll. In 1877, while working for the Naval Observatory, astronomer Asaph Hall discovered the two satellites of Mars.īy the 1890's, it was clear that the Naval Observatory had to move out of the city. The astronomical and nautical almanacs were started in 1855. During these years significant scientific studies were carried out such as speed of light measurements, the phenomena of solar eclipses and transit of Venus expeditions. For nearly 50 years the Observatory remained at the Foggy Bottom location. Naval Observatory and was located on the hill north of where the Lincoln Memorial now stands (i.e. In 1844, as its mission evolved and expanded, the Depot was reestablished as the U.S.
Navy's chronometers, charts and other navigational equipment. Naval Observatory is the preeminent authority in the areas of time keeping and celestial observing determining and distributing the timing and astronomical data required for accurate navigation and fundamental astronomy.Įstablished in 1830 as the Depot of Charts and Instruments, its primary mission was to care for the U.S. Naval Observatory is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the country.