It seemed like such an obvious thing to take pictures of—Endeavour, the last space shuttle, making its last flight, right over southern California. I tried to think through the photographic issues—the optimal viewing spot, how best to avoid the crowds, how early to get into position—but they seemed a lot more academic than emotional to me.
And then, just a few minutes later than advertised, Endeavour was right overhead.
Much to my surprise, I felt a lot of emotion. The crowd atop the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, many of whom had walked up a killer flight of concrete steps to get the view because there wasn’t enough parking for everyone on top of the hill, spontaneously broke into applause. It was a large crowd, exponentially bigger than anything I’d seen before on the crest, and it was a diverse group. Here, people who had nothing in common gathered for the spectacle of an aircraft unable to fly under its own power passing overhead.
My own memory was jogged back 31 years, to the first shuttle landing. STS-1 had been diverted for landing from Florida to Edwards Air Force Base north of Los Angeles by bad weather. That April day in 1981 was cloudless across much of California. As the shuttle crossed the coast at Big Sur and descended for the dry desert lake bed, shuttle pilot Bob Crippen exclaimed, “What a way to come to California!”
And on this warm Los Angeles day, the last full day of summer, the shuttle had found another, equally impressive way to come to California.
So what was it that brought so many out all over California? Could it have been that space flight has gone in a generation from being a fantasy to repetitious? Or that the Shuttle Age, which began a few weeks after the attempted assassination of President Reagan, was now museum material? Or was it, possibly, that our curiosity is still in full force over things than defy gravity?
I don’t know why it was such a powerful moment with complete strangers on top of an otherwise overlooked hill on a hot day, but it was. And I’m sure glad I made the effort to be a part of Endeavour’s arrival.
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Wow! Amazing shots, Dad! Love them!
Great pics. I remember sitting outside with my (then) 2 year old son and actually SEEING the space shuttle overhead. It was a moonless night, and the shuttle was but a bright spot in the sky…. but it was moving. The viewing was publicized in the paper, so there were a lot of neighbors out also. Sort of a unreal moment.