The Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex is a NASA facility in the Mojave Desert about 40 miles north of Barstow, operating as part of the Deep Space Network that maintains contact with spacecraft across the solar system and beyond. The complex has multiple large dish antennas, the biggest a 70-meter dish that has been communicating with deep-space probes since the 1960s.
Access to the complex itself is restricted to Fort Irwin military property, and tours are occasional and require advance arrangement. However, the visitor exhibit at the NASA Goldstone Visitor Center in a nearby Barstow hotel gives an overview of the Deep Space Network's history and current missions. The dishes are visible from a distance on the drive north, rising from the flat desert like something from a science fiction film — which is exactly what Spielberg thought when he based the E.T. final scene on them.