The Spaceship Company

Rotary Rocket Company was a rocketry company that developed the Roton concept in the late 1990s as a fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) crewed spacecraft. The design was initially conceived by Bevin McKinney, who shared it with Gary Hudson. In 1996, Rotary Rocket Company was formed to commercialize the concept. The Roton was intended to reduce costs of launching payloads into low Earth orbit by a factor of ten. The company gathered considerable venture capital from angel investors and opened a factory headquartered in a 45,000-square-foot (4,200 m2) facility at Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California. The fuselage for their vehicles was made by Scaled Composites, at the same airport, while the company developed the novel engine design and helicopter-like landing system. A full-scale test vehicle made three hover flights in 1999, but the company exhausted its funds and closed in early 2001.

The National Test Pilot School (NTPS) is the only civilian test-pilot school in the United States, located in Mojave, California. It is organized as a not-for-profit educational institute under California state law and is governed by a board of trustees. NTPS is one of the seven test-pilot schools worldwide recognized by the international Society of Experimental Test Pilots, giving pilot graduates of NTPS instant initial acceptance into their society. In 2016, NTPS became the first test-pilot school in the world to be certified as a Flight Test Authorised Training Organisation by the European Aviation Safety Organization.

Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to develop experimental aircraft, the company now focuses on designing and developing concept craft and prototype fabrication processes for aircraft and other vehicles. It is known for unconventional designs, for its use of non-metal, composite materials, and for winning the Ansari X Prize with its experimental spacecraft SpaceShipOne.

Stratolaunch LLC is an American aerospace company providing high-speed flight test services. It was originally formed in 2011 to develop a new air-launched space transportation system, with its corporate headquarters located in Seattle. The company and development project were officially announced in December 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan, who had previously collaborated on the creation of SpaceShipOne. After 10 years of previous private investment, the company was acquired in 2019 by Cerberus Capital Management and has since been 100% privately funded and operated as a non-traditional defense contractor. The project originally had three primary components: a carrier aircraft being built by Scaled Composites (model Stratolaunch, called "Roc"), a multi-stage payload launch vehicle which was to have been launched at high altitude into space from under the carrier aircraft, plus a mating and integration system by Dynetics. Ultimately, only the carrier aircraft was fully developed by the time of Paul Allen's death in late 2018. The carrier aircraft first flew in April 2019, at the Mojave Air and Space Port, reaching 15,000 ft (4,600 m) and 190 mph (305 km/h) in a 2 hour 29 minute flight.Stratolaunch underwent a change of ownership and direction when Jean Floyd took lead as CEO in 2019, reacquiring staff and growing to 87 employees by the beginning of 2020. Dr. Zachary Krevor now serves in the role of President and Chief Executive Officer of Stratolaunch, LLC and has been the company head since March 2022. Prior to becoming the President and Chief Operating Officer at Stratolaunch LLC, Dr. Krevor was the Vice President of Engineering at Stratolaunch Systems Corporation.

Mojave (formerly Mohave) is an unincorporated community in Kern County, California, United States. Mojave is located 50 miles (80 km) east of Bakersfield, and 100 miles (161 km) north of Los Angeles, at an elevation of 2,762 feet (842 m). The town is located in the western region of the Mojave Desert, below and east of Oak Creek Pass and the Tehachapi Mountains. Mojave is on the Pacific Crest Trail.The population was 4,238 at the 2010 census, up from 3,836 at the 2000 census. Telephone numbers in Mojave follow the format (661) 824-xxxx and the area includes three postal ZIP Codes.

Twenty-mule teams were teams of eighteen mules and two horses attached to large wagons that transported borax out of Death Valley from 1883 to 1898. They traveled from mines across the Mojave Desert to the nearest railroad spur, 165 miles (266 km) away in Mojave. The routes were from the Harmony and Amargosa Borax Works to Daggett, California, and later Mojave, California. After Harmony and Amargosa shut down in 1888, the mule team's route was moved to the mines at Borate, 3 miles (5 km) east of Calico, back to Daggett. There they worked from 1891 until 1898 when they were replaced by the Borate and Daggett Railroad. The wagons were among the largest ever pulled by draft animals, designed to carry 10 short tons (9 metric tons) of borax ore at a time.

Gold Town (on topographic maps) or OarVille is a former settlement in Kern County, California. It was located 9.5 miles (15 km) north of Rosamond, at an elevation of 2,713 feet (827 m).Today, Goldtown exists only as a grid of dirt roads and a few abandoned buildings and mines in the desert off the California State Route 14. Silver Queen Road is the main paved road that connects Goldtown to the California State Route 14. Fleta, California is 0.62 miles northeast of Goldtown. Mojave, California is 1.44 miles (2.3 km) to the north. Gold mines exist within 2 miles to the north and south of Goldtown.[1] These mines include: the Golden Queen Mine and Elephant Eagle mine on Soledad Mountain south of Goldtown [2], and Whitmore Mine and Exposed Treasure mine on Standard Hill north of Goldtown. KHXT-FM (Mojave) radio tower, at an elevation of 3,028 feet (923 meters) above sea level, is 1.56 miles (2.5 km) southeast of Goldtown. The California Aqueduct Road is located about 5 miles (8.1 km) to the west of Goldtown.

Reefer City is a ghost town in Kern County, California. It was located 3.25 miles (5.2 km) south-southwest of Mojave, at an elevation of 2762 feet (842 m). Reefer City still appeared on maps as late as 1947.Reefer City was established in June 1936 by Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, formerly Gold Fields of South Africa Limited, a company founded and based in London, after a gold lode was discovered on Soledad Mountain near Mojave. The company purchased refrigerator cars, known colloquially as "reefers", from the Southern Pacific Railroad to house the miners. After the mine closed in 1942, the community housed military personnel from Edwards Air Force Base until the 1960s. In 1971, Reefer City was purchased and demolished by a salvage company.

Tehichipa is a former settlement in Kern County, California. It was located on the railroad near Oak Creek Pass and Old Town.Tehichipa, originally known as Williamsburg, was founded in 1869 by James Williams; while Williams originally named the town for himself, its name was changed to Tehichipa by 1872. The town was a shipping center for Owens Valley gold mines prior to the construction of a railroad in the area. However, when the Southern Pacific Railroad built a railroad in 1876, it bypassed Tehichipa, instead establishing a new town named "Tehachapi Summit". The railroad caused Tehachapi Summit to grow at Tehichipa's expense. Tehachapi Summit evolved into the city of Tehachapi, while Tehichipa ultimately died out. The only surviving building from Tehichipa, the Errea House, is now located in Tehachapi.A post office operated at Tehichipa from 1869 to 1877, when the service was transferred to Old Town.

The Horned Toad Hills (also known as Tehachapi Mountains) are a low mountain range in the Mojave Desert, in southeastern Kern County, California.

Wonder Acres is a settlement in the western Mojave Desert, within eastern Kern County, southern California, in the United States. It is located northeast of the city of Mojave, on California State Route 14 at the intersection with California City Boulevard. It is 5 miles (8.0 km) west of California City, and 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Cache Creek.

The Tehachapi Wind Resource Area (TWRA) is a large wind resource area along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and Tehachapi Mountains in California. It is the largest wind resource area in California, encompassing an area of approximately 800 sq mi (2,100 km2) and producing a combined 3,507 MW of renewable electricity between its 5 independent wind farms. The mountain pass acts as a venturi effect to air moving between ocean and desert, increasing wind speed.This area is a net exporter of generation to other parts of the state of California. A state initiative to upgrade the transmission out of Tehachapi (the 4.5 GW Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project) began in 2008 and was completed by 2016. This has opened the door to further regional wind power development up to 10 GW, and multiple solar and storage projects are installed to utilize that capacity. A prime location for viewing the turbines is off of State Route 58 and from Tehachapi-Willow Springs Road.