U.S. Naval Museum of Armament and Technology

I visited the China Lake Base museum in November 2015 with my family and we all loved the experience.
In order to get into the museum you have to get a background check completed at the Pass and ID office. The process can take up to 2 hours. There may be a way to have the background completed before arriving in Ridgecrest.
The museum opens at 10AM, and only request a $ 5 donation per person. The volunteers and staff that work at the museum are all super friendly and very knowledgeable. There is also a very nice gift shop in the museum.
China Lake base is credited with creating the sidewinder air to air missile, which was a game changer for air combat.
The museum is filled with a vast assortment of different types of missiles and the history behind the creation. They also have many videos of the throughout the museum tour.
Lots of great photo ops.
I really liked the museum and the staff, and feel it’s worth the wait and trouble for clearance to go to the museum.

Great museum if you’re into the U.S. Military, its weapons, and aircraft. They have some aircraft on display outside, including an F/​A-​18 Hornet. Inside they have a great array of many modern and recently retired missiles and bombs. There’s descriptions and photos for everything on display, even internal views. It was a nice drive getting there and it’s on a Naval Base so make sure you have your ID, car insurance, and registration up to date because they’ll check it all. The coolest thing there was a real Tomahawk Cruise Missile on display, those things are huge! And the museum is free!

If I’m not mistaken they’re getting ready to build a museum outside of the base, near the Maturango Museum, so it’s easier for the public to visit. If that’s the case, I hope it’s more spacious and updated.
The museum is pretty interesting, though it’s more about the outside exhibits. The inside gets a bit redundant after a while. I mean, how many rooms filled with missiles can you really look at after a while? Designs on exhibits are pretty dated.
Outside they have various jets and planes set up to walk around, and even some nuclear weaponry like the Polaris missile and the MKIV, modeled after Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
While walking around out there, a roadrunner came by to check out the jets with us and endless flocks of geese kept flying overhead. It was special.

This museum is unique. I took a tour with some of the docents who volunteer there and learned many new things about rockets and missiles. This is the kind of museum that makes you think and appreciate being an American. This museum has what I think has been missing from American culture since I was a kid, a healthy reminder of what it takes to be a free nation and why we are a world leader: innovation and true dedication to the principles that protect our freedom (freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law).
This museum reminded me that freedom does not come for free. Protecting our people, and our principles, requires power. I, for one, will not forget that sometimes, protecting our nation will require sanctioned force, we MUST put power behind our principles to protect them. This museum will bring this concept alive in your heart and mind.
The museum was interesting and engaging. It felt like a religious experience when I put my hands of a real sidewinder and wrapped my arms around the Tomahawk missile. There was something else that was really cool, I got to meet a Presidential award winning physicist who was teaching a group of kids about rocket science! I want my kids to have that experience!
Do you want to feel hope for our future? Come visit this museum!

This museum is one of a kind, because the work it represents in the «Secret City» China Lake since WWII is unique in the world. To quote a visitor from Ireland, «America spent a lot of money and did a lot of work to keep the free world free». Visitors almost all say it’s an amazing museum, especially if you request a docent to give you a tour, one who most likely worked on developing the weapons you see which are launched from aircraft, submarines, ships, and ground vehicles. Kids interested in rocket science like it too, but more hand’s-on exhibits would make it more interesting, so kids benefit from a guide who can explain things to them, which can be arranged by calling 760−939−3530. If you like the movie «Top Gun», that scratches the surface of what the China Lake Museum is about, and the history of our remote and fascinating desert. My grandkids always want to take another tour when they visit.

I must be easy to please. I was in AWWWWW… I truly appreciated the U.S. Naval planes. I’m looking forward to going back! :)

A museum that could benefit from a bit of updating. On the outside, there are several planes lined up in a field. The models mainly date to the 1950s and are not especially significant. For some planes, no plaque was even available for identification purposes. This would be even more a problem on the inside of the museum. There were a few rooms jam packed with replicas of many of the commonly used naval weapons. I saw Harpoons, Sidewinders, Tomahawks and so forth. The most interesting object may have been an atomic bomb case which was a curious selection given that it’s the DOE that handles nuclear weapons and not the DOD. There were some nods to other aspects of weapons development other then finalized pro