Lompoc

Kozicki told me about that experience as we both stood atop a sand dune at Surf Beach, just outside Lompoc, waiting for a different rocket to launch.

SpaceX and other companies have been sending up more and more rockets in recent years, and Lompoc has become a day trip destination for aerospace aficionados.

Some Lompoc residents have complained about the effects of all that rumbling on their houses, but others, like Wilkinson, enjoy living so close to the action; he said he doesn’t even bother straightening the pictures on the walls of his house anymore.

The first time Gene Kozicki drove to Lompoc to see a rocket blast off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, it was night, and the whole scene reminded him of the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

The judge ordered that Do surrender himself to federal custody by Aug. 15 and recommended he be incarcerated in the federal prison in Lompoc.