Source: Popular Mechanics

New Area 51: Mojave’s Desert Outpost Holds Spaceflight’s Future

By Joe Pappalardo

Two technicians in coveralls stoop to push a gleaming white plane through open hangar doors into the bright sunshine of southern California’s Mojave Desert. The tailless aircraft is about 18 ft. long with a rounded fuselage and sweptback wings, tips bent upward in pronounced winglets. A pair of canards stretches 13 ft. across the cone-shaped nose. A two-seat cockpit is slung beneath gullwing doors that look like they belong on a ‘54 Benz coupe. Basically, the aircraft is a rocket with wings.

The techs remove the cowling that covers the plane’s engine, exposing slender helium tanks and intricate connections of frosted liquid oxygen fuel lines. Two engineers in jeans and sneakers emerge from the hangar. Brandon Woodworth, 26, clipboard in hand, begins a brisk 100-item-plus diagnostic rundown.

“Check switch number nine to check thermocouples on the LOX tank,” Woodworth says. “Any gripes?”

In tandem, the techs answer “no”—the temperature sensors on the liquid oxygen tank are functioning.

Woodworth nods. “Check switch number 10.”

And so it goes through six pages of procedures. Then the crew tests the igniter, which emits a throaty burp, calibrates the fuel flows and tops off the tank with liquid oxygen cooled to minus 297 F. White mist curls from the nozzle as the gas boils off in the hot sun.

Meanwhile, an interloper on a Harley-Davidson pulls up on the road that parallels the chain-link fence along the airport perimeter.

Standing on tiptoe, he holds a digital camera above the fence and begins squeezing off shots of the exotic rocket plane 15 yards away. The crew ignores him. “He probably couldn’t recognize anything proprietary even if he could get a picture of it,” says Reuben Garcia, 34, crew chief and composite materials ace.

The shooter stows the camera, mounts his Harley and roars off. Whether tourist or aviation paparazzi, he has come to the right place to capture images from the cutting edge of aerospace. The city of Mojave—a low-rise community of 3800 people, 100 miles north of Los Angeles—doesn’t look like much. The dusty main drag has two traffic lights, a cluster of fast-food franchises and one decent roadhouse, Mike’s, where a mix of miners, bikers and pilots drink, shoot pool and watch motor sports on ESPN. The desert winds blow tirelessly.
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