Onizuka Air Force Station for kids
The Mystery Blue Cube. The true story of Onizuka Air Force Station, near Sunnyvale, CA, told for kids.
Read along
Psst! Have you ever seen a giant blue box with no windows? Near here, there used to be a building that people called the Blue Cube! It was a big, blue, windowy-less building, like a giant block that a giant kid forgot to put away.
Inside, people from the Air Force worked on controlling satellites, the things that fly around way up above the Earth. Outside, there were three big dish antennas, named Sun East, Sun West, and Sun 3. They were like giant ears listening to the sky. The station worked for fifty years, from 1960 to 2010.
Now, look out the window. Can you spot something shaped like a dish, or a box, or a cube?
Quiz the back seat
What was the building called?
Show the answer
The Blue Cube. The Blue Cube! It got its name from its shape and color, and it had no windows at all.
3 fun facts
- Building 1003 was known locally as the Blue Cube.
- It had three main dish antennas named Sun East, Sun West, and Sun 3.
- Onizuka Air Force Station operated from 1960 to 2010.
For grown-ups
Every Tumbly story is checked claim by claim against the sources below before it's published; stories that don't pass stay off the app and this site. Narration is pre-recorded, and nothing you do on this page is tied to your kids.
Sources
- heritageparkmuseum.org/blog/what-is-the-blue-cube
- foothill.edu/sunnyvale/history.html
- storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5e781879c6014cc3a0384113f876b389
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onizuka_Air_Force_Station
- thespacereview.com/article/2919/1
- patelder.weebly.com/onizuka-afb.html
- vandenberg.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/339616/onizuka-afs-closes-operations-move-to-vandenberg
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