Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake
Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake is part of Commander, Navy Region Southwest under Commander, Navy Installations Command and is located in the Western Mojave Desert region of California, approximately 150 miles (240 km) north of Los Angeles. Occupying three counties – Kern, San Bernardino and Inyo – the installation’s closest neighbors are the cities of Ridgecrest, Inyokern, Trona and Darwin. The main gate of the installation is located at the intersection of Inyokern Road (Highway 178) and China Lake Blvd. in the city of Ridgecrest.
China Lake is the United States Navy's largest single landholding, representing 85 percent of the Navy’s land for weapons and armaments research, development, acquisition, testing and evaluation (RDAT&E) use and 38 percent of the Navy’s land holdings worldwide. In total, its two ranges and main site cover more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2), an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. As of 2010, at least 95 percent of that land has been left undeveloped. The roughly $3 billion infrastructure of the installation consists of 2,132 buildings and facilities, 329 miles (529 km) of paved roads, and 1,801 miles (2,898 km) of unpaved roads.
The 19,600 square miles (51,000 km2) of restricted and controlled airspace at China Lake makes up 12 percent of California’s total airspace and provides an unprecedented venue for integrated testing and training of today’s warfighter. Jointly-controlled by NAWS China Lake, Edwards Air Force Base and Fort Irwin, this airspace is known as the R-2508 Special Use Airspace Complex.
Read more about Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake: History, Environmental Stewardship, Origin of Name
Famous quotes containing the words naval, air, weapons, station, china and/or lake:
“It is now time to stop and to ask ourselves the question which my last commanding officer, Admiral Hyman Rickover, asked me and every other young naval officer who serves or has served in an atomic submarine. For our Nation M for all of us M that question is, “Why not the best?””
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“They may bring their fattest cattle and richest fruits to the fair, but they are all eclipsed by the show of men. These are stirring autumn days, when men sweep by in crowds, amid the rustle of leaves like migrating finches; this is the true harvest of the year, when the air is but the breath of men, and the rustling of leaves is as the trampling of the crowd.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Never had he found himself so close to those terrible weapons of feminine artillery.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“[T]here is no situation so deplorable ... as that of a gentlewoman in real poverty.... Birth, family, and education become misfortunes when we cannot attain some means of supporting ourselves in the station they throw us into. Our friends and former acquaintances look on it as a disgrace to own us.... If we were to attempt getting our living by any trade, people in that station would think we were endeavoring to take their bread out of their mouths.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“These beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting,—these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)