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Mojave Spaceport
Written by Ben Riecken
Photos by Ben Riecken
After a long flight from Orlando to Los Angeles, my friend Jean and
I drove 80 miles northbound on I-5 in the desert to the town of Mojave.
As we approached the town, a welcome sign, “Home of SpaceShipOne,” reminded
me that this town has gained its notoriety for the first privately
built rocket plane to fly into space.
Ben Riecken at the entrance of Mojave town
Thinking back to that historic day, I wished I could have witnessed
it in person. Instead, I was in Europe running back and forth between
the television and the computer trying to watch the event live until
finally I found a live internet feed. At that same time, a friend
showed up at my house. “What are you watching?” “SpaceShipOne”,
I replied staring at the computer screen. “That’s just
a plane,” he said, gesturing at the model airplanes in the
room. “That’s the door to space travel!” I replied
firmly.
Coming out of my reverie, I realized we were at the Mojave hotel.
As we proceeded through the check in, the woman at the front desk
charged us for one night when we had the intention of staying for
three. “I believe there is a mistake. You charged me for one
night instead of three,” I said. “You want to stay more
than one night in Mojave?” she asked with amazement. “Yes,
three nights,” I replied with a smile. After all, she was right,
there is nothing to do in this town except design and fly incredible
airplanes.
The following
day, Wenneth Painter, a test pilot at the National Test Pilot School, greeted
us at the airport to take us on a tour. “You see all those hangars?” he
said. “Most of them are IFR approved. No windows. Something secret
going on,” he added. When we completed the tour, he drove away from
the airport on a dirt road that brought us to the house of Burt Rutan. Burt
Rutan is the designer of SpaceShipOne who with his unconventional approach
has made a real difference in aerospace advancement. I burst out in laughter
when we saw the entrance of his house with the tail of an aircraft converted
into a mailbox. “When Burt first put in it, people called the police
to report a crash,” Painter said laughing.
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