Inyokern, CA
Built 1942 as Naval Air Station Inyokern, supporting weapons development at the Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake next door — birthplace of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile and Walleye glide bomb. Mercury Seven astronaut Wally Schirra spent his pre-NASA test-pilot tour at China Lake. Today a small civilian field; China Lake remains active and the surrounding restricted airspace is some of the most extensive in the country. The high desert sits at 2,457ft elevation with summer density altitudes routinely above 7,000ft.
500 tufa towers rising 140 feet from the floor of the Searles Lake basin — calcium carbonate spires formed underwater between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago, now exposed as the lake dried. Used as filming location for Star Trek V, Planet of the Apes, and dozens of sci-fi productions. From the air, the pinnacles look like alien architecture on the desert floor. National Natural Landmark, Bureau of Land Management.
Walk the ramp at KMHV and you're standing where Voyager took off in 1986 to become the first aircraft to fly around the world non-stop, unrefueled (Burt Rutan's wife Jeana Yeager and brother Dick Rutan, 9 days, 3 minutes, 44 seconds). SpaceShipOne launched here in 2004 to win the Ansari X-Prize as the first private manned spacecraft. Steve Fossett took GlobalFlyer around the world solo non-stop in 2005. Today Stratolaunch — Paul Allen's twin-fuselage carrier with the largest wingspan ever flown (385 feet) — operates from this same ramp. The boneyard of stored airliners on the south side of the airport is among the largest in the country. The desert horizon makes the Earth feel like a spaceport.
Edwards Air Force Base, Rogers Dry Lake — the natural 44-square-mile lakebed where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the X-1 on October 14, 1947. Pancho Barnes ran the Happy Bottom Riding Club from 1947 to 1953 on adjacent land — pilots who broke Mach 1 earned a free steak. The club burned down in 1953 under suspicious circumstances during a land dispute with the Air Force. Today Pancho's memorial sits at the Edwards main gate. Mojave Air & Space Port (KMHV) is 30 miles west on the same lakebed system.
14,505 feet — the highest peak in the contiguous United States. The eastern face rises 11,000ft from Lone Pine in 12 miles, the most dramatic vertical relief in the country. From Lone Pine Airport (O26) at the base, the cockpit view looking west is straight at granite. Mount Muir, Crooks Peak, and Lone Pine Peak make up the rest of the eastern Sierra crest. Climbers reach the summit via Whitney Portal; the eastern view from Owens Valley shows the full granite face.