Memories carried on the breeze.

Chemicals bubbling in beakers.

Chalk in the air.

Machine oil soaked into a wooden floor.

The smells of what came before – and would come again.

In July 2019, a pair of major earthquakes shattered the peace in the Indian Wells Valley, causing extensive damage at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and the surrounding communities. Five years later – almost to the day – three facilities re-opened: the Machine Shop, Chemistry Lab, and Environmental Lab.

Standing in Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division’s cavernous new Machine Shop, third-generation China Laker Ron Pruitt, who MC’d the ceremony marking the facility’s rebirth held aloft a small wooden block – a piece of the old Shop’s floor – covered in signatures and stained with age.

“Years ago, the Shop flooded, and when we replaced the damaged blocks, we signed them. This is the Pruitt block. My name’s on there, my brother Mike, my dad George, my grandpa George, and my great uncle David. All five of us walked the little blocks in the machine shop,” he said. “It still smells like machine oil. Like the old shop.”

The reconstruction effort for all three facilities – a partnership of more than 90 different commands and companies – was a massive effort, but ensures that the expertise and attitude known as “the China Lake way” will continue for decades to come.

“Among the 29 projects that are a part the earthquake recovery program, this one ranks as the most challenging,” said Capt. Ben Wainwright, commanding officer for the Officer in Charge of Construction, China Lake. “The price tag for this project is $260 million, and worth every penny.”

Over in the Chemistry Lab, visitors are greeted with a diagram of CL-20, an explosive compound created at China Lake in 1988. In the old lab, chemists worked on biofuels and explosive compounds and luminescent chemicals. In the new facility, they are working on heat-resistant materials and single-molecule magnets.

The Environmental Lab tested components and weapons in the toughest weather conditions, ensuring they could stand the challenges of Mother Nature and physics. The new lab continues that tradition with state-of-the-art equipment allowing for acoustic and vibration simulation testing for weapons and aerospace components.

Ask anyone who’s been around and you’ll hear that cutting-edge labs and future-looking technology aren’t anything new for a forward-looking group like the men and women at NAWCWD.

“The technology of today, you envisioned and were working on yesterday,” said Rear Adm. Keith Hash, NAWCWD commander. “Unmanned systems? Additive manufacturing? Biofuels? New and better energetic materials? Old news here at WD.”

Hash praised the NAWCWD team, and the generations of families that came before them, for rolling up their sleeves in service to the nation and delivering the impossible – sometimes just because someone said it couldn’t be done.

“Your creations, your expertise, and your ‘no is not an option’ attitude has touched every continent – and even traversed space to touchdown on the Red Planet. Your accomplishments are not just stellar; they are interstellar.”