The air is so clear the mountains in the distance look almost fake, as if added digitally. The desert floor is runway-flat, with a few Joshua trees popping up randomly, like lost cowboys. The dominant feature is the sky, preposterously vast, beckoning test pilots, rocketeers and would-be space travelers.

Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier near Mojave in 1947. Neil Armstrong flew rocket planes. Tom Wolfe immortalized the Antelope Valley's hard-drinking, sky-shattering aviation pioneers in his book "The Right Stuff." The place is chockablock with history — and yet it's the future that everyone's buzzing about.

To hear the dreamers tell it, this is the next Silicon Valley. The Mojave Air and Space Port is the spiritual heart of the industry that people call "New Space."