Dying for lack of funds

While the plumbers and wrench wielders (they are wrongly referred to as ‘astronauts’ by the media) perform some of the costliest repairs on earth (oops, outside Earth) it’s clear that the magnificent piece of imagination-turned-to-reality known as the Hubble space telescope is on its last legs. That’s a shame. Still, unlike the guy with the beer belly who gets $100 an hour for turning up when he feels like it and charging you whether it works or not, at least the NASA plumbers turned up more or less on time.

The Hubble space telescope

The pictures that Hubble has sent back are like nothing else we have seen before, and doubly exciting for that.

I still remember with amusement, if without surprise, the debacle when the Hubble was first launched. A Hughes subsidiary – yes, you guessed it – owned by who else but General Motors? – royally cocked up the manufacture of the mirror so that the results beamed back to earth compared unfavorable to snaps taken using the bottom of a Coke bottle for a lens. In a world where we prefer being nice to enforcing accountability, no heads rolled and the taxpayer had to pay up as usual for government incompetence.

In this case, let it be added, the fix was brilliant and it’s one I have been advocating for camera makers for ages. It’s the software, stupid!. Some engineers a good deal smarter than the clods at Hughes who made the mirror wrote code to correct the aberrations introduced by the badly made mirror and all was sweetness and light. Lousy lens, great software. Far cheaper than the other way around. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Hubble space snaps before and after the software fix

This is what good DSLR lens design so needs – small lenses, huge zoom ranges and great software to fix what ails the design compromises.

But the Hubble is a pleasant reminder of America’s technical genius and ‘can do’ spirit, coupled with a broader sense that sharing all these great images with a curious world can only be a good thing.

On to Mars!

A pleasant memory

Yesterday’s column reminds me of my Air Force One experience. We were told to line up just so and under no conditions were we to take pictures. Probably five to life at Guantanamo if you dared.

Screw that, says I. I own a part of this plane – I paid for it. Or, as its last custodian once famously remarked when some leftie tried to cut him off at a meeting he had funded – “Mr. Chairman, I paid for this microphone!”

Aboard Reagan’s Air Force One

A moment’s clandestine work with my point-and-shoot digital – near silent and unobtrusive if the flash is off – is all it took. The guard securing this national treasure and repository of military secrets – in reality a 40 year old Boeing 707 which you couldn’t give away for scrap – was but two feet away.

You can enjoy the same experience by making your way to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, just north of west Los Angeles, and while you’re there, you can learn about the last great leader our nation enjoyed.

The line waiting to get in:

Pricey snapshot

The WSJ reports that the flyby in NYC, causing so much panic, cost $300,000. The intent apparently was to take a snap of Air Force One flying by the Statue of Liberty – a laudable idea, but …. $300 Big Ones in these times suggests a certain disconnect with the working man, no?

The resulting picture

One of the costlier pictures of 2009. Though I must add it’s simply a show stopper. Beats me why they didn’t erase the clutter in the background.

Spotted in Morro Bay, CA

Just messing about, not really looking, I came across this wonderful Austin FX4 diesel taxi abandoned in a derelict lot.

It pays to take the back roads.

5D, 24-105mm at 24mm

As a kid in London I can only remember having been in these twice, a scarcity directly correlated with my lack of money (or poor parental choice, if you prefer). The smell of the leather was simply intoxicating.