So I watched the new IMAX documentary Deep Sky at the California Science Center earlier today, and I must say that it was really good!
The film is pretty up-to-date in regards to the photos and exoplanetary data collected by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope since its first official images were unveiled to the public in July of 2022.
If you liked the 2010 IMAX film Hubble like I did, then you'll enjoy this one...even though Deep Sky wasn't shown in 3D like the Toni Myers documentary was when I saw it on the big screen for the first time 13 years ago.
In terms of the narration, Michelle Williams did a great job doing the voice-over in Deep Sky like Leonardo DiCaprio did for Hubble.
And just like Hubble, I intend to buy Deep Sky on DVD once it's available for purchase. Yes, DVD!
It was 10 years ago today that the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit was opened to the general public at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. I myself didn't see the retired orbiter in person till almost 9 years later...in March of 2022.
You can view more photos from my trip to Cape Canaveral by clicking below.
And back here on the West Coast, I look forward to heading back to the California Science Center in downtown Los Angeles to see the latest progress on the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, space shuttle Endeavour's future and final home! Stay tuned.
Just thought I'd share these photos I took 10 years ago when Endeavour—NASA's youngest retired space shuttle orbiter—began her 3-day move from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center near downtown L.A.!
I didn't go to the science center when Endeavour finally arrived at the museum on Sunday, October 14, 2012...but I was lucky enough to head to the cities of Westchester and Inglewood on October 12 to see the orbiter sitting at a parking lot; while engineers prepared to resume her move down the 12-mile route taking Endeavour to her final retirement home in Exposition Park.
And it was awesome to see Endeavour sitting outside the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza and a nearby Krispy Kreme Doughnuts shop on the night of October 13 a decade ago. A $1.8 billion (in 1987 U.S. dollars) reusable spacecraft parked outside a shopping mall... You'll never witness that again!
Click here to see more photos from Endeavour's parade.
It was 10 years ago today that a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft(SCA)—known as NASA 905—with the retired orbiter Endeavour sitting atop of it ceremoniously landed at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)!
One of my former coworkers and I joined a large throng of people at a residential area overlooking LAX to see the SCA and Endeavour perform a flyover of the airport before touching down on the runway...their escort of two F-18 jets flying away to return to NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert afterwards.
And a few weeks later, Endeavour would begin her much-celebrated parade down the streets of L.A. to her final home at the California Science Center.
The video (below) posted by AFRC's Twitter account nicely sums up what an amazing and emotional day it was a decade ago to see such a historic spacecraft do a victory lap around most of California (San Diego was excluded) before arriving at her last destination in the City of Angels.
This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime event.
10 years ago today @NASA's space shuttle Endeavour took its last flight.
On its final flight on September 21,2012 to the California Science Center, Endeavour was escorted by a combination of F/A-18s and an F-15 from NASA Armstrong.
Almost two weeks ago, on August 9, I drove to the California Science Center near downtown Los Angeles to pay this great museum another visit! The last time I was here was back in July of 2019—to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon.
My main reason for this month's visit was to check out the construction progress on the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center...space shuttle Endeavour's permanent home once it opens in 2025. You can check out images that I took of the construction site here.
I shot photos of other cool attractions at the Science Center...such as the replica of Cassini(which is on loan from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory around 20 miles away) and a full-scale model of the Pioneer spacecraft above, the retired F/A-18 Hornet below, and my latest pictures of Endeavour, her external fuel tank ET-94 and a Space Shuttle Main Engine at the Samuel Oschin Pavilion.
The Pavilion will permanently close in late 2023 to prepare Endeavour and ET-94 for their move to the construction site of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. They will be placed in their vertical launch configuration (along with the twin solid rocket boosters that are currently in storage at California's Mojave Air and Space Port) before assembly resumes on the Air and Space Center, and the new building permanently enshrouds the shuttle stack!
I plan on going back to the California Science Center sometime next year to capture more photos of the Air and Space Center's construction progress. Carry on!
I took these photos during work last month, but just thought I'd finally share these pics that I took of Lockheed's A-12 spy plane that's been on display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles for quite some time now. This A-12 in particular, dubbed the Titanium Goose(although the A-12 was generally called Cygnus by its pilots), is a two-seater training variant that is one of 15 aircraft that were built under the CIA's Oxcart program that began in the late 1950s. Nine of the SR-71 Blackbird's precursors are on display at museums (and CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia) throughout the nation...with the other six being lost during in-flight mishaps (with three fatalities) from 1963 to 1968. What a sad way to end this aerospace program, but I'm glad that this engineering marvel was still able to go on exhibit here in the City of Angels.
So yesterday, I visited Griffith Observatory for the first time in almost 23 years! This historic Los Angeles landmark still looks as elegant as it did when I last went here in the summer of 1994...right before I started my first year in high school. The Astronomers Monument out in the front lawn is still a neat sight to see, it was cool to watch the pendulum swing away inside the main lobby again, and it was great to get a glimpse of the 12-inch Zeiss Telescope in the left dome (if you're viewing Griffith from the front lawn) of the observatory.
I was thinking about attending a show inside the Samuel Oschin Planetarium (not to be confused with the Samuel Oschin Pavilion—the temporary home of space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center in Exposition Park), but it would've been about a two-hour wait for the next one to begin. So I decided to take a few more pics and bought two fridge magnets at the gift shop before I took a lengthy but quick walk (thank you, gravity!) to my car parked about a mile down the hill.
I'm a huge space geek today...thanks in part to a field trip that my class took to Griffith back in the 4th grade (in April of 1990). The many astronomy exhibits on display throughout the observatory are a thrill to see if you love learning about the cosmos. And if you don't care about learning about the cosmos (damn you), Griffith is still a wonderful place to just hang out and use one of the many spotting scopes placed on and around the building to gaze down at the Los Angeles Basin, or the Hollywood Sign a few miles away.
All-in-all, Griffith Observatory is a must-see if you're a tourist visiting from out of state or out of country, or you're an L.A. native who wants to check out a landmark that makes you appreciate just how amazing the City of Angels really is. Will I visit Griffith again, you ask? You betcha! And this time I'm gonna dish out $7 to catch a cool show inside the planetarium. Happy (rainy) Monday!
Earlier today, I attended a NASA Social event at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) in Edwards Air Force Base, California. I haven't been to a NASA-hosted social media gathering since December of 2014...when I drove down to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Pasadena to celebrate the maiden launch of Orion on Exploration Flight Test 1. This is my third Social since the NASA Tweetup I went to in June of 2011...which also took place at JPL and celebrated the then-impending launch of the Curiosity Mars rover.
Today's event was devoted to learning about how the noise level of sonic booms can be reduced to avoid causing disruption in populated areas...and applying this knowledge to an experimental aircraft that NASA is planning to build, known as the Low Boom Flight Demonstration Quiet Supersonic Transport—or QueSST. During the Social, we stood outside at one point and watched as an F/A-18 Hornet performed several so-called “low-boom dive maneuvers” to demonstrate different sonic boom intensities. The F/A-18 then did a low flyover near our area so we could get some cool snapshots and video footage of the jet before it landed.
Afterwards, we walked over to various hangars that housed other aircraft being used by AFRC, such as two F-15 Eagles, a Gulfstream III aircraft, as well as the Ikhana Predator B(which I also learned about during the NASA Social in December of 2014) and RQ-4 Global Hawk drones. The twin Solid Rocket Boosters that will be transported to the California Science Center to be mated with shuttle fuel tank ET-94 and orbiter Endeavour in 2018 were at a hangar nearby, but visiting these wasn't on today's itinerary so we were unable to check them out. Oh well.
I'm currently on the waiting list to attend another NASA Social at JPL during the Independence Day weekend (on July 3-4, specifically). Hopefully, I'll be able to get selected for the event if one of the confirmed attendees drops out. This Social is commemorating the arrival of NASA's Juno spacecraft at Jupiter on July 4...and I want to be at JPL's Space Flight Operations Facility (a.k.a. mission control) to witness this event unfold in person! Carry on.
Just thought I'd share these two cool pics I stumbled upon online as space shuttle Endeavour prepared to venture to her final resting home in Los Angeles back in September of 2012. In the photo above, an F-35A Lightning II soars over Endeavour and her Shuttle Carrier Aircraft as they were prepped for flight on the tarmac at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. In the image below, a visitor aboard the USS Iowa in San Pedro took this shot of the retired orbiter as she flew high above the battleship's mighty 16-inch guns (two of which are visible in this pic). Endeavour's permanent exhibit, the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, is set to open at the California Science Center in 2018. I'll be there when it opens...or soon thereafter.
I took these two pics after I got off from work last Valentine's Day, but just thought I'd post them here now (they've been taking up space on my laptop since then). The Metro Gold Line is in action as passengers take the train that carries them above the 101 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles. I've never taken this particular Metro line before, but I did use the subway when I checked out space shuttle Endeavour during her move to the California Science Center two years back(I met up with one of my friends in North Hollywood and took the train all the way down to the City of Angels). Fun times.
On Friday, October 24, another daredevil broke an aerospace record when Google executive Alan Eustace cut loose from a helium-filled balloon and conducted a 25-mile-high, 15-minute-long skydive above Roswell, New Mexico. Under the veil of secrecy, Eustace broke the record held by Felix Baumgartner when the Austrian—with the help of Red Bull—performed a jump from 127,852 feet above the Roswell desert in 2012. Eustace made the leap from an altitude of 135,890 feet by comparison. Both feats are amazing... However, Eustace is reportedly a huge space enthusiast, whereas Baumgartner is not. Despite the fact that there is a much cooler video and pictures from the Red Bull Stratos jump (I even got to see the suit and capsule used by Baumgartner in person at the California Science Center last year), I have to give more props to Eustace. Well done.
Paragon Space Development Corporation / European Pressphoto Agency
J. Martin Harris Photography / Paragon Space Development Corporation
Last month, I decided to drive down to Orange County (which is only about 20 miles from where I live) just for the heck of it. Rather than heading to The Outlets at Orange (formerly called The Block at Orange) as originally planned though, I instead decided to visit Discovery Cube Orange County (formerly known as the Discovery Science Center... I have no idea why all of these O.C. locales are doing name-changes, kinda like the um, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) in Santa Ana. It's in the parking lot of this science museum where a refurbished Delta III booster is displayed, as well as a replica of space shuttle Endeavour's forward fuselage. Kinda like the random O.C. name changes, I have no idea why this replica was built, nor if it had any use in the space shuttle program (I'm pretty sure it didn't). One thing's for sure, it obviously isn't the same as viewing the actual orbiter herself at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. But the Delta III is pretty cool— One wonders if the Discovery Cube may one day harbor a booster that belongs to the currently-operational Delta II or Delta IV rocket. That'd be awesome.
Yesterday, I drove down to the California Science Center in Los Angeles to view three displays that presented the past, present and future of aerospace and human spaceflight. Along with seeing space shuttle Endeavour and a SpaceX Dragon capsule in person once more (click here to view the photos), I also got to view up-close the Red Bull Stratos capsule from which Felix Baumgartner jumped out of during his historic space dive one year ago today. His pressure suit was also on display, and as you can see from the pic above, it looks like the suit would fit just right on me. Of course, I would need a bit of training and the multi-million dollar support of a company like Red Bull to make me become only the third person in humankind to skydive from outer space, hah. There's alwaysSpaceShipTwo...and me winning the lottery to make that trip happen.
