Secretive DOD research agency breaks ground in Va.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The secretive Pentagon agency that brought us the Internet and tried to bring us bomb-sniffing bees, warrior exoskeletons and terrorism futures trading took a small step out into the spotlight Wednesday to break ground on a new headquarters.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, will be moving to a 350,000-square-foot facility in Arlington County just a few miles from the Pentagon and just a few blocks from its existing location.

Virginia politicians fought hard to keep the relatively tiny agency from leaving the state, approving a $10 million state grant to keep them from leaving.

In 2005, Virginia had been in danger of losing DARPA to Maryland as part of a nationwide base-realignment process.

Wednesday’s groundbreaking was a full-fledged dog-and-pony show, with Gov. Tim Kaine, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., and others posing for pictures with shovels in hand.

Despite that, DARPA officials did not appear to be completely comfortable with a high public profile: the agency’s new director, Regina Dugan, gave a short speech and declined to answer questions from reporters after the event.

In an e-mailed statement, a DARPA spokeswoman said the new location “was determined to be the best deal for the Government. As for publicity, she said that “to the extent information can be shared without compromising national security, DARPA supports the public’s need to access information.”

The agency was formed in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite and the fear that America was falling behind technologically.

DARPA has a reputation for doing high-risk, high-reward research that sometimes catches headlines despite the agency’s efforts to keep a low profile. It is generally credited with building the precursor to the Internet 40 years ago and with developing the computer mouse.

Its far-flung ideas have sometimes led it astray as well, critics say. In 2003, Congress stepped in to kill a terrorism futures market that would have allowed people to profit if they could accurately predict an upcoming terrorist event. The idea was that fluctuations in the market might serve as a warning that an attack was imminent, but opponents found the idea ghoulish and feared it would create a profit motive to launch an attack.

DARPA has also funded controversial research designed to mine through millions of pieces of public and private records to find leads into potential terrorist activity.

Within government, though, the agency’s reputation for conducting research without getting cluttered in bureaucracy is being emulated. In 2007, the Department of Energy established ARPA-E, modeled on DARPA to conduct the same kind of far-flung research on energy issues, like using bacteria, sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce biofuels.

While DARPA employs fewer than 250 people, the new headquarters allows Virginia to retain more than 800 jobs because of the contracting jobs associated with DARPA, which has an annual budget of more than $3 billion.

Kaine said the state had not always recognized the economic-development value associated with military jobs, but said DARPA is a perfect example of that value. The scientists who work there collaborate with experts at the nearby National Science Foundation and other knowledge-based employers, drawing a work force that in turn entices even more employers.

“DARPA is as good an economic development magnet as you will find,” he said.