Random Excellence: The L.A. Times

Photo by Brian van der Brug / L.A. Times

Here in the U.S. we don't normally think of California as a "flyover state,"* but it was yesterday.

Check out the L.A. Times' wonderful set of documentary pictures of the sentimental and celebratory final flight of the Space Shuttle.

(I found the set taken as a whole to be better than any one picture. My favorite if I had to pick one would be Bob Chamberlin's shot of the Shuttle past the smokestacks of the Queen Mary.)

Mike
(Thanks to John Camp)

*A derogatory term for the interior states used by people on both coasts, meaning that all you ever do is fly over them when going from one coast to the other.

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Paris: "The 747 carrying the Endeavor made a low pass over the University of Arizona at Tucson, for the benefit of Endeavor commander Mark Kelly and his wife, former Representative Gabrielle Giffords."

Comments

[Mike Plews]

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-02/amazing-pic-discovery-docking-iss-taken-earth

Here's another picture of the Space Shuttle taken a while ago and from a slightly greater distance.

[Jay]

" *A derogatory term for the interior states used by people on both coasts, meaning that all you ever do is fly over them when going from one coast to the other."

It's details like this that make your blog one of the first I want to read from my rss feed. I even find myself reading topics I don't generally care for such as cars. Keep up the quality writing.

[Player]

It's very sad, no matter how apt, to see the corpse of the Space Shuttle being carried across California's bankrupt sky.

[Ron Dubin]

That entire set is great, they didn't miss a location and some of the better images they've published in a long time.

Everybody with a camera or iPhone was out yesterday, including myself ... ;)

http://500px.com/photo/14344029

[MM]

How fun to see so much unbridled joy! (Especially since many of us residents of central flyover states think of California as second only to NY in terms of jadedness.)

Too many good ones to pick a favorite, but in Katie Falkenberg's first schoolyard photo (URL #16; caption 17/42), the kid in purple at center-right zooming off with his arms outstretched like a plane makes all the difference in the photo.

[David Blanchard]

I had hoped that the flight track would take the aircraft over northern Arizona so that I could see -- and maybe photograph -- the last flight of the Endeavour. Unfortunately for me -- but great for those in southern Arizona -- the flight was modified for a flyover of Tucson. It was a fitting tribute to former Rep. Gabby Giffords and Endeavour Commander Mark Kelly.

So, I'll have to be content with this image I took as Endeavour was still orbiting the Earth.

http://www.dblanchard.net/blog/2011/05/the-final-flight-of-the-endeavour/

David Blanchard
Flagstaff, AZ

[nacho]

This Space Shuttle flying over an American city is like the Rolling Stones on tour. Always the last time but then there is always one more (I am happy with having more of both).

On a different note, that sensor needs some serious cleaning ...

[Larry larsen]

You should include the pictures and information about cutting down 14 miles of street trees to get the damn thing to the museum. Question of priorities; added income to the museum or trees needed to clean the air, provide shade, etc. When will we ever learn?

[Andy]

Sign o' the times! A high (very high) % of people were so busy taking (poor quality) pictures on their camera phones they probably forgot to take the whole thing in "for real". ;)

A sad day for the space flight program, but also a great time to reflect on the wonderful (and sometimes tragic) life of the shuttle and its journey.

Space exploration must continue, as I'm sure it will. Humanity's need to explore is unquenchable and unstoppable.

As is our need to take photos ;)*

Andy

[ctein]

Dear Mike,

Paula and I lucked out -- it really *WAS* luck -- we hopped in the car and drove four miles to the side of Mt. San Bruno to get out from under the coastal morning fog, in the hopes of getting a glimpse of the shuttle flying down the Pensinsula.

After making two passes at the Golden Gate Bridge, it wound up flying almost directly overhead. Woohoo!

Hope I'm embedding this right (never done this before):

Anyways, you can see a higher res sequence of seven photos here:

http://ctein.com/TOP/Endeavour/

Funny bit of egoncentric-blinder parochialism on my part. Until yesterday, I hadn't really twigged to the awareness that most people had never even seen a shuttle in real life. Gotta get out of my head, more {s}.

Well, a lot more now have. Very fine.

pax / Ctein
==========================================
-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com
==========================================

[David Dyer-Bennet]

747s are wonderful for this sort of thing -- they're so out-of-scale huge that they look much closer than the really are, giving rise to all sorts of interesting perspective possibilities. Looks like the LA Times went after them aggressively, too.

(Here's an amazing National Geographic shot of a 747 coming in over Maho beach on St. Maarten for example.)

[marek]

Photo #7 in the series was so telling - phones phones phones. Nary a camera in sight...
http://framework.latimes.com/2012/09/19/endeavour-photos/#/7

[Stephen Gilbert]

James Fallows has a link to a great shuttle video here: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/todays-romance-of-past-technology-video/262693/

[Mathew Hargreaves]

Great photos overall. I enjoyed seeing it. The shuttle trainer was delivered to the Museum of Flight at Seattle in three trips inside the last flying large Super Guppy. I managed to be at the first and third deliveries for photos. It looks like the end of the manned missions for the US. One can hope for a revival of the greatness that our Manned Space Programs represent.

[Art in LA]

I agree, the collection is greater than any individual shot. I took my own pics down by the Queen Mary ... nice to see the pro's perspective too. My favorite shot is the one above Griffith Observatory with downtown LA in the background. My favorite aspect of the flyover though was the "gathering of the tribe", all walks of life sharing a common American experience. A nice change of pace from the political bickering of our presidential election. A bit melancholy too - "the space program is dead, long live the space program!".

[Paris]

Oops. Representative Giffords, not Senator. I knew that, really. Old age finger failure.

[Ger lawlor]

So depressing to see people looking at phones and camera screens instead of the real thing. Why do people bother going to events if they are going to look at them on three inch screens with their hands in the air?

[Stephen]

As a resident of the Houston area, I can't help but view these photos with very different emotions. *sigh*

Lovely photos though...

[Kevin Purcell]

I was amused by the tiny number of people looking through a viewfinder compared to the majority looking at the "electronic ground glass" screens.

But those people can see around the camera and get a feel for what's going on.

The guys squinting through an OVF with the other eye closed on the other hand ...

[John Robison]

With the Shuttle retired and the Orion project dead I guess NASA manned space flight is back about where it was prior to 1960. Can't even pop a man up to a suborbital with a Redstone much less to orbit with Atlas or Titan.

[John Robison]

Ctein's shots and some of the others sure show the effects of the atmosphere in long range photography. My favorite one is #35 of 49, really like the effect of the unsteady air.

[friv]

That entire set is great

[GH]

As much as I am interested in space travel (I even went to Space Camp as a kid,) I'm a little taken aback by the local interest of seeing the shuttle fly over head attached to a 747. It essentially flew right over my house yesterday, and I can't say it was all that exciting.

Now, had it been an actual launch from a launchpad, then it'd been a real spectacle!

[Ed Kuipers (not directly related no)]

Yeps, André Kuipers went up and down to ISS in a Soyuz.....shows what old communist technology can still achive....but of course we in the so called "free" West have other things to do, like save some overly wealthy bankmanagers and there hedgefund billionairs.....(sorry Mike, if to political use the bin on your Mac, but couldn't help it).

So unless we stop the looting of the 99% by the 1% things like manned spaceflight in the West can only be afforded by those 1%.....well the businessmodel of Rutan/Branson and some Dutch outfit that will start it's missions from the Dutch Antilles. Space is not for pioneers but for playboys (and there playgirls) these days.

Greets, Ed.

[John Hall]

Mike - great thread!
Larry, I share your sadness over the trees, one hopes that most of them were the typical scrawny variety. FWIW the museum has pledged to re-plant what was cut and then some, though of course a seedling and a mature tree are two different animals.
I doubt the motive was profit so much as pride 28 million will take a while to amortize). The space shuttle belongs where she can inspire as many people as possible.
cheers,
john

[David Bostedo]

DDB - While the size of 747s does cause interesting perspectives, in that St. Maarten shot it really is very very close. The runway starts right as the beach ends, and people will sometimes flee from the blowing sand the engines produce.

Here's a pretty good video of a landing : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w-9G8z4RCI

[Roman (Canon user)]

Very beautiful!
Boeing 747 is a plane of its age! It's a pitty that Space Shuttles are not flying anymore.

[hotel sur paris]

Sign o' the times! A high (very high) % of people were so busy taking (poor quality) pictures on their camera phones they probably forgot to take the whole thing in "for real". ;)

A sad day for the space flight program, but also a great time to reflect on the wonderful (and sometimes tragic) life of the shuttle and its journey.

Space exploration must continue, as I'm sure it will. Humanity's need to explore is unquenchable and unstoppable.

As is our need to take photos ;)*

Andy

+1

[GLT Bandy]

As a proud Angeleno, and ex- New Yorker (double jaded?) I'm sick of the provincialism that inspires the armchair philosophy of those who need to constantly put down both my home towns. The shuttle was an L.A. baby -engineered and to a great degree assembled locally. The hundreds and thousands who viewed this last flight expressed nostalgia and awe - everyone I came in contact with mentioned an overwhelming sense of wonder - and everyone was smiling. I inadverdently chased the shuttle through poor and middle class areas, as well as Beverly Hills, and the sense of awe was uniform. By the way, the last time I checked L.A. had more museums than any other US city, and was at one time the hub of
aircraft and aerospace manufacturing. We do treasure our trees - and the
deal is apparently double or triple replacement. "Corpse of the shuttle across a bankrupt sky" is poetic and dramatic - maybe, but we felt more joy than bankruptcy. Must be all that cynicism we have with our morning Cheerios.
"MM" thank you for noticing the "unbridled joy". That's what we jaded, bankrupt, left coast Angelenos felt. And it felt good.