Shuttle Endeavor over Los Angeles - Photos!

[Ad Astra]

My brother-in-law lives in Los Angeles and was good enough to send me these photos of the Space Shuttle Endeavor making its last flight into LAX airport. (Thanks Bill!!! ) The photos are lovely, and I've always found the Shuttle to be a wonderful machine, and I admire the astronaut core very greatly. But I readily admit to very mixed feelings here.

My country had no real national service or day of mourning for Neil Armstrong - the first human being to set foot upon another world - and yet we are spending many weeks and loads of hoopla and news coverage of the last tour of a technology we no longer use. I try to imagine something similar in Britian....

Britian announces that all Navy ships will be retired - and simultaneously cancels the existing development program for all new ships. Then you lot spend weeks - towing mind you, not sailing! - you remaining ships around the UK so people could cheer things like "We used to be a seafaring nation! Hurrah!", and "Look what we used to be able to do! Hurrah!" Then you decommision your last ships and place them in permanent dry dock as monuments to your former glory. Meanwhile, there are no British sailors anywhere upon the waves, and no plan to put them there any time soon. Not only this, but the media and the government all cheer and tell the great UK public that this is a "Triumph of our Nation for the 21st Century!!!!".

No, you see, I just can't quite imagine it. *sigh* Only in America.

Anyway.... the photos are amazing and I hope you enjoy them.

Dan

[Ganymede12]

Those are very nice

Thanks for sharing!

[paul schofield]

Wow lovely pics. Thanks for sharing them.

[SteveA]

Hi Dan,

I agree with your sentiments here...although I've heard all the arguments for the future direction of the space program in the USA, I can't help feeling that the demise of the shuttle program was a tradgedy.

I was in Florida at the time Neil Armstrong passsed away and apart from some special features presented on NASA TV there was only a cursory mention of this on the news channels, which did suprise me.

Interestingly your musings on an analagous situation in the UK are worryingly close to reality. We recently decomissioned our one and only aircraft carrier and seem to be scrapping everything else that floats these days. We are not however dry docking the Ark Royal...oh no...bids are out for the highest bidding scrap metal dealer!...another tradgedy.

So it seems, as in most things...where the USA lead...Britain follows!

Loved the photos by the way..