Vandenberg Air Force Base (IATA: VBG, ICAO: KVBG, FAA LID: VBG) is a United States Air Force Base, located approximately 9.2 miles (14.8 km) northwest of Lompoc, California. It is under the jurisdiction of the 30th Space Wing, Air Force Space Command (AFSC).
Vandenberg AFB is a Department of Defense space and missile testing base, with a mission of placing satellites into polar orbit from the West Coast, using expendable boosters (Pegasus, Taurus, Minotaur, Atlas V and Delta IV). Wing personnel also support the Service's LGM-30G Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force Development Evaluation program.
The base is named in honor of former Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt S. Vandenberg.
Read more about Vandenberg Air Force Base: Units, History, Geography, Demographics
Famous quotes containing the words air, force and/or base:
“The air was so elastic and crystalline that it had the same effect on the landscape that a glass has on a picture, to give it an ideal remoteness and perfection.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The force of truth that a statement imparts, then, its prominence among the hordes of recorded observations that I may optionally apply to my own life, depends, in addition to the sense that it is argumentatively defensible, on the sense that someone like me, and someone I like, whose voice is audible and who is at least notionally in the same room with me, does or can possibly hold it to be compellingly true.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)
“Adolescence is a time when children are supposed to move away from parents who are holding firm and protective behind them. When the parents disconnect, the children have no base to move away from or return to. They arent ready to face the world alone. With divorce, adolescents feel abandoned, and they are outraged at that abandonment. They are angry at both parents for letting them down. Often they feel that their parents broke the rules and so now they can too.”
—Mary Pipher (20th century)