Space Shuttle and my e-bike

[e-beach]

The only thing better then watching a space shuttle fly over my home town peir.....Is ridding my e-bike to watch the space shuttle fly over my home town peir.

(If the pictures are too large for your screen, try right clicking on the picture and then clicking "view image". Clikc the back button to get back to ES.)

I had a good day today.

How was your day?

 

[The fingers]

I saw it out the car windshield at work for about 5 seconds. 8)

 

[StudEbiker]

Very cool.

 

[cal3thousand]

That's cool that you got such a good view. I was able to see about 30 seconds from my work office downtown.

BTW, you got a helmet yet? I remember you not having one and I ironically just got a new full face for the weather change.

 

[e-beach]

That's cool that you got such a good view. I was able to see about 30 seconds from my work office downtown.

As luck would have it, it happened to be my day off today.

BTW, you got a helmet yet? I remember you not having one and I ironically just got a new full face for the weather change.

I get paid tomorrow, the check will clear Tuesday, and I will probably order this Bern's, but the full white version.
http://www.altrec.com/bern/mens-watts-helmet-56139

Or maybe this Giro.
http://www.backcountry.com/images/items/large/GIR/GIR0316/MATWH.jpg

Anyway, something with a hard shell plus foam that is meant to sustain multiple impacts and not just one. Not that I am planning anything.

 

[dogman dan]

I just went to my roof for it. My pics came out not so good, didn't know the camera reset to 1 megapixel if you put new batteries in it.

Since I live near the NASA test site, they did a flyby almost right over my house.

 

[Alan B]

Here's one of the pics I took:

This was in the San Francisco Bay Area, from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. It passed by pretty close.

Nikon D7000 w 70-300mm.

There are more pics in my Greyborg thread, link in my sig.

 

[Rodney64]

Yes an end of an era,

 

[e-beach]

Here's one of the pics I took:

Nice shot!

 

[Joseph C.]

Yes an end of an era,

Yes, but it is also the beginning of a much, much better one.

Rex mortuus est, vivat rex.

Here is the new king.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

 

[bluegoatwoods]

That certainly was a nice shot, Alan B.

I liked the nice send-off for Endeavor. And the others, for that matter. You can actually 'feel' the affection people have for them.

What's particularly poignant for me is not just the fact that it's the end of an era. Consider the original aim of the space shuttle program; to make it cheap to get people and cargo into and out of orbit. In that, they could only be called a total failure.

Yet NASA still found a job for them to do. During the Mir and ISS missions they showed off american technical abilities almost as well as the moon landings.

Such beautiful machines. Part of me would almost rather see them continue to fly at whatever cost. But I'll admit that it's time to move on.

But I'll remember them with as much affection as the Apollo spacecraft.

Maybe it's time to start cheering for the Dragon.

 

[cal3thousand]

Those are some nice shots.

My wife and 4 year old had better views than I did since they were in Marina Del Rey (<5 miles from LAX). They actually got to hear and feel it fly overhead. Wife said it was intensely loud.

 

[e-beach]

Those are some nice shots. My wife and 4 year old had better views than I did since they were in Marina Del Rey (<5 miles from LAX). They actually got to hear and feel it fly overhead. Wife said it was intensely loud.

They probably saw it just after it made it's flyover of LAX. It would have been lower where your wife and child were then it's altitude over most of Los Angeles.

Personally I am going to miss the A-political nature of the now gutted NASA astronaut corp. Privatized astronauts just aren't going to give me the warm feeling I got when NASA's astronauts did something great, either on there own, like a moon walk, or with international involvement like a space station "space walk."

 

[The fingers]

Now we're space hitch hikers.