Join us for 20% off in the gift shop and cookies and coffee while you shop!

Buy a meal at Pizza Factory and the proceeds will go to the Museum!

Walking field trip for Las Flores School 2nd Graders

On 11 May, we had kindergarten and first grade students form Las Flores Grade school visit our museum

Inspiring Future Rocket Chemists

Event Held at the China Lake Museum on 9 April, 2022

Inspiring Future Rocket Chemists was a STEM event sponsored by the local chapter of the American Chemical Society and hosted by the China Lake Museum Foundation. The event featured chemical reactions demonstrating the conversion of a small volume of solids or liquids into a large volume of gas, the fundamental chemistry of rocket propulsion. Labs demonstrated Rocket Propulsion characterization, Rocket Stability, model Rocket pre-flight assembly, and Safety. The event concluded with the launch of eight Estes rockets and a pizza lunch. Thirty-two 7th and 8th grade students from the Ridgecrest area participated in the event.

Volunteers that made this event possible included local research chemists and members of the China Lake Museum Foundation.

Henry Blecca Memorial Service

The China Lake Museum Presents the 1st lecture in our new Hidden History Lecture Series: "The Vertical Launch ASROC Story," by Scott O'Neil, Former NAWCWD Executive Director. The Vertical Launch ASROC (VLA) story is the first of our new Hidden History lecture series. VLA is the third generation of Anti-Submarine Rockets (ASROCs) built and deployed by China Lake. The rocket delivers a torpedo that is activated on water entry. It then searches, detects, tracks, and destroys enemy submarines. VLA delivers this capability by launching an ASROC from the Navy’s vertical launching system. The VLA then maneuvers the rocket to the desired aimpoint. The lecture will not only go over the stories of developing the underpinning technology, but also the many challenges, complexities, and successes involved with this project.

** New Date ** New Date ** New Date ** New Date ** New Date **

LIVE AUCTION

SILENT AUCTION

SPECIAL & CAN RAFFLES

We are now accepting 20th Annual Dinner Auction Donations! Help the China Lake Museum continue to grow in Ridgecrest! 

Art, jewelry, furniture, new or gently used items can be donated at our new location at 130 E. Las Flores Ave., Ridgecrest, CA 93555. Each item being donated must have donation sheet. We have donation sheets on hand too.

To receive the donation sheet/form by email; send request to chinalakemuseum@mediacombb.net or chinalakemuseumstoremanager@gmail.com

For further information call the museum at (760) 677-2866.

Unsure if your item is right for us?? Give us a call, stop by, or email us a picture. We’ll let you know.

The China Lake Museum Foundation Presents
Eric Haseltine and Chris Gilbert
Tuesday 14 September 6:30 PM
Marriott Springhill Suits Conference Room
Riding the Monster: Five Ways to Innovate Inside Bureaucracies
Lecture and Book Signing
Free and Open to the Public

Our “Celebrating the 60’s” dinner and dance is coming on Saturday November 16, 2019. Join us for trivia, games and lots of surprises from 5 PM to 10 PM at the Kerr McGee Center. Get your tickets now– only 350 will be sold.

“Hit the silk!” Parachutes have been a critical part of an aircrew’s lifesaving kit since the World War I and continue to save lives to this day. But not every parachute is designed to save lives, instead, some are designed to save equipment, help distribute lethal payloads, and even help explore other planets.

Come learn about parachute development for both Earth and Mars based systems when Elsa Hennings Presents: Navy/NASA Synergy in Parachute Development. This special presentation will delve into the career of a Senior Systems Engineer for parachute engineering. Now a Parachute Engineering Consultant, Elsa Hennings has worked with the Navy for 36 years and has designed components for Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rover missions as well as supported programs of national significance such as NASA’s Orion spacecraft and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars 2020 spacecraft. Attendees will experience stories and video highlights of programs utilizing parachutes for micro-munitions, jet-powered targets, and bailout systems for Navy aircrew as well as Space Shuttle astronauts.

The China Lake Museum Foundation is proud to sponsor Elsa Hennings in this free event. Donations are greatly appreciated.                                     

Please RSVP by Monday, 25 March to: chinalakemuseumstoremanager@gmail.com or chinalakemuseum@mediacombb.net

Walk-ins also welcome.

Brian Siela Presents: Rigid Airships of the United States Navy

The German Zeppelins remain some of the largest and most infamous types of air vehicles ever made. Most commonly remembered for their bombing role in WWI or for the devastating Hindenburg disaster, Zeppelins and similar rigid airships had a big impact on history. Germany, however, was not the only nation to use these awe inspiring vehicles. The United States Navy operated its own rigid airships and, to much amazement, flying aircraft carriers.

            Come learn about one of the Navy’s least known and most astonishing endeavors as Brian Siela presents: Rigid Airships of the United States Navy. This special presentation will delve into the history of these gigantic airships with a focus on the science, engineering, and politics surrounding them. Tales of harrowing danger, amusing adventures, and tragic heroics will be told.

Brian Siela is an Aerospace Engineer with a passion for history and has been researching airships for over ten years. His historical area of expertise is in naval and air tactics for the period of history spanning WWI and WWII with an emphasis in Clemson- and Wickes-class destroyers and lighter-than-air ships. Brian is a graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle and has worked at China Lake for over 3 years. He has helped in establishing the Lecture Series for the China Lake Museum Foundation where he is currently a member of the Board of Directors.

            The China Lake Museum Foundation is proud to sponsor Brian Siela in this free to attend event, October 18th, 6:30-7:30pm, located in the Coso Room of the Maturango Museum.

            Please RSVP at: (chinalakemuseum@mediacombb.net). Walk-ins also welcome.

 -- Paul Wesling, Stanford ’66 (BSEE) and ’68 (MS-MatSci), IEEE Life Fellow, retired from Tandem Computers/Hewlett Packard.

    Why did Silicon Valley come into being? The story goes back to the local hobby group of Hams (amateur radio operators) trying to break RCA's tube patents, early Stanford engineers, the sinking of the Titanic and WW I, early “angel” investments, Fred Terman and Stanford University, local invention of high-power tubes (gammatron, klystron), WW II and radar, new approaches to running companies, and the SF Bay Area infrastructure that developed -- these factors pretty much determined that the semiconductor and IC industries would be located in the Santa Clara Valley of California, and it would become the model for innovation worldwide. 

    Paul Wesling, an IEEE Life Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer, will give an exciting and colorful history of device technology development and innovation that began in Palo Alto with some Stanford grads, and spread across the Santa Clara Valley during and following World War II. You'll meet some of the colorful characters – Cyril Elwell, Lee DeForest, Bill Eitel, Charles Litton, Fred Terman, David Packard, Bill Hewlett and others -- who came to set leadership patterns for the worldwide electronics industries through their inventions and process development and allied management techniques.  Exploding after military investments during and after WW II, this innovation continued through analog design, to digital, then to software, biotech, the Internet, mobile, Big Data, virtual reality, and now autonomous transportation.  He’ll end by telling us about some current movements that keep alive the spirit of the radio Hams and the Homebrew Computer Club -- Maker Faire, MeetUps, incubators, and the other entrepreneurial groups where geeks gather to start new companies that invent the future.

Paul Wesling,
past IEEE SF Bay Area Communications Director and Webmaster,
and Life Fellow of the IEEE

Paul Wesling got interested in technology as a youngster, including a Scout trip to NOTS to see the Sidewinder and rocket sled when he was 14.  He went on to receive his BS in electrical engineering and his MS in materials science from Stanford University.  Following assignments at GTE/Lenkurt Electric, ISS/Sperry-Univac, Datapoint Peripheral Products (VP - Product Integrity), and Amdahl (mainframe testing), he joined Tandem Computers in Cupertino (now part of Hewlett Packard) in 1985.  He designed several multi-chip module prototypes, managed Tandem's Distinguished Lectures series, and organized a number of advanced technology courses for his Division and also for the IEEE.  He managed a grant from the National Science Foundation for the development of multimedia educational modules.  Paul retired from HP in 2001, and then served for 10 years as the Communications Director for the IEEE’s S.F. Bay Area Council.

As vice president of publications from 1985 through 2008, he supervised four archival journals and a newsletter for IEEE’s Electronics Packaging Society.  He is a Fellow of the IEEE, and received the IEEE Centennial Medal, the Board's Distinguished Service award, the Society Contribution Award, and the IEEE's Third Millennium Medal. He has organized over 500 courses for the local IEEE chapter in the Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley), many of them held at Stanford University (and, more recently, at Silicon Valley company facilities).  An Eagle Scout, he served as scoutmaster of his local Boy Scout Troop for 15 years, was Advisor of a High-Adventure Crew, and enjoys backpacking, fly fishing, guitar and amateur radio (call sign: KM6LH).