The Right Stuff......

Besides taking pictures of people my good friend Abdi loves to take pictures of doors, entry ways, windows and arches of all kinds. There is something metaphorical in his images, inviting to look at and sometimes causing the viewer to want to venture within. My friend Ocean also loves to take people pictures, but often excels at taking pictures of nature, often playing with its transparency or reflectivity of light. In doing so I sometimes feel the reflections of his mood and emotions. I've spent allot of time in this blog talking and imaging the various people in my life. I also have other passions one of them is flying or more precisely the vehicles we use to fly. When I am having one of my lucid dreams (which I often do) I have the ability to fly at will ala superman... I often find the experience to be exhilarating, and in someways stress relieving. Ironically I am reticent to fly on a commercial plane for some reason, I will do it if I have to but I do not find it as pleasant as my dreams. Yet I am attracted to the technology, I am intrigued at the rate of change that has come over the the past hundred or so years and often wonder why it took man so long to accomplish the feat of flying.

In 1903 the Wright brothers, Dayton Ohio cycle shop owners by trade, took their design for a aeroplane and packed their craft off to the dunes of Kitty Hawk North Carolina where they knew they could take advantage of head winds to help them become the first at successfull sustained powered flight. The craft to me represents the epitome of how a simple idea often is the best idea. There is one final irony related to the Wright flyer... Had there not been a camera there to capture the event, the Wright brothers would have probably never been credited for the feat.

Forward to May 20th 1927 and the envelope is pushed open a bit farther, as Charles Lindbergh flew 33 hours, 30 minutes and 29.8 seconds to cross the atlantic to be the first in a solo flight, landing at the Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris, France and winning the Orteig Prize. To me it represents the need for humans to overcome any obstecals put before them...

On October 14, 1947, just under a month after the United States Air Force had been created as a separate service, the tests culminated in the first manned supersonic flight, piloted by Air Force Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager in aircraft which he had christened ‘Glamorous Glennis’, after his wife. The rocket-powered aircraft was launched from the belly of a specially modified B-29 and glided to a landing on a runway. X-1 flight number 50 is the first one where the X-1 recorded supersonic flight, at Mach 1.06 peak speed; however, Yeager and many other personnel record the possibility that Flight #49 (also with Yeager piloting), which reached a top recorded speed of Mach 0.997, may have in fact passed the Sound Barrier. The X1 represents courage... If you ever read or saw the film version of "The Right Stuff" you know many men lost their lives trying to break the sound barrier.... Yeager proved to be the right man at the right moment in aviation development, his feat gave him a folk hero status in the aviation community.

Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. It was the fifth human spaceflight of the Apollo program, and the third human voyage to the moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon, while Collins orbited above. The mission fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's goal of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the 1960s. Many consider the landing one of the defining moments of the 20th century. Over 600 million people watched the this event which out of all of the aviation landmarks was probably the most photographed event in human history. The ability to touch this craft in a mueseum brought back the memory of sitting with my family, watching the events and history take place right before my eyes.

Star Trek debuted in the United States on NBC on September 8, 1966. The show, starring William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, told the tale of the crew of the starship Enterprise and that crew's five-year mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before." In its first two seasons it was nominated for Emmy Awards as Best Dramatic Series. After only three seasons, the show was cancelled and the last episode aired on June 3, 1969. The series subsequently became popular in reruns, and a cult following developed, complete with fan conventions. You might ask why I included this image in this post... It not only represents hope for the future, but also inspiration in what is to come. Many of todays astronauts and engineers credit Star Trek and the Enterprise with why they got into the aerospace buisness..... and work everyday to ensure that one day we all get the chance to fly.

The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., United States. It maintains the largest collection of aircraft and spacecraft in the world, and is the world's most-visited museum, hosting over 9,000,000 people each year. It is also a vital center for research into the history, science, and technology of aviation and space flight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics. Almost all space and aircraft on display are originals.
Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.