Space Shuttle Discovery DC Fly-Over

Space Shuttle Discovery DC Fly-Over (201204170012HQ), a photo by nasa hq photo on Flickr.

Barry Lyndon: Use of the Mitchell BNC Camera and Zeiss Lenses

Interviewees reminisce on how Stanley Kubrick acquired the Mitchell BNC cameras and used them, in conjunction with NASA Zeiss lenses, to film “Barry Lyndon” using natural light.

Kubrick used three NASA-built 50mm f0.7 aperture lens so he could shoot literally by candlelight. f0.7! That’s two full stops faster than any lens you can get today.

via Barry Lyndon: Use of the Mitchell BNC Camera and Zeiss Lenses – YouTube.

Apollo Mission Events Imagery

Combining mid-century illustration, Futura and the Apollo Mission: Apollo Mission Events (via Draplin).

You want to go to there.

STS-135 Landing

STS-135 Landing (201107210002HQ), a photo by nasa hq photo on Flickr.

STS-135 Atlantis Landing

STS-135 Atlantis Landing (201107210003HQ), a photo by nasa hq photo on Flickr.

‪Space Shuttle: The complete missions

STS-135 Atlantis Landing Countdown – 1 Day to Landing

STS-135 Atlantis Landing Countdown (201107200001HQ), a photo by nasa hq photo on Flickr.

STS-135 Atlantis NASAtweetup Writeup

Last Atlantis Launch for STS-135, a photo by plemeljr on Flickr.

Here is my writeup for the STS-135 Atlantis NASAtweetup, an excerpt:

Once above the tower, the Shuttle elongates to a dark blob on the end of a matter-defying streak of pure light. It is unbelievably, eye-searing, bright. Then the sound of five engines drift over the water from three miles away. A force so strong, that if you were 400 yards away from the pad you would be incinerated and 800 yards away the acoustical wave would kill you. Three miles away, this force merely pushes you back; a low and steady bass which befuddles your mind into trying to figure out how the streaking blob and the animalistic scream fit together.

This is joy; joy of hearing a safe throttle back to relieve the astronauts of the massive gravity force; joy of hearing the throttle up command but knowing that in 1986 six astronauts and one teacher lost their lives at about this point; joy in hearing the CAPCOM call out in successive moments abort locations, knowing that the violent thrust behind the astronauts both increase altitude, and brings them into a safer orbit; joy that eight minutes and thirty seconds later the call, Press to MECO, is confirmed and the main engines cut off for the last time and the astronauts are in a safe, stable orbit.