Who took these pictures and where can I find more/higher res ones?

[Mason Dixon]

[Martin FL]

From the chase plane that takes images of the Shuttle to check for any problems. There's a set of images on L2.

[Chris Bergin]

These guys (Rob and Dom) took them from the WB-57 and we have the set on L2 after they passed them on via a source.

[SpaceCat]

Now there's a couple of guys who really enjoy their work!
WB-57 homepage:  http://jsc-aircraft-ops.jsc.nasa.gov/wb57/index.html

(bet it makes our member, 'Rocket Nut' Larry kind of homesick!  

[Rocket Nut]

SpaceCat - 19/10/2006  8:35 PM

Now there's a couple of guys who really enjoy their work!
WB-57 homepage:  http://jsc-aircraft-ops.jsc.nasa.gov/wb57/index.html

(bet it makes our member, 'Rocket Nut' Larry kind of homesick!  

Ah yes...I saw one of the planes here at Patrick AFB last month, both on the ground and at a reported 50,000 feet over my house.  Not a cloud in the sky other than the contrail...sure looked insignificant up there!  The view from the cockpit is much more exciting.

Cheers,

Larry

[Paul Howard]

I bet those guys have got a few stories to tell. Are they NASA or Air Force?

[DaveS]

Paul Howard - 23/10/2006  11:03 PM

I bet those guys have got a few stories to tell. Are they NASA or Air Force?

Probably NASA as they're flying a NASA aircraft.

[Rocket Nut]

DaveS - 23/10/2006  5:44 PM

Paul Howard - 23/10/2006  11:03 PM

I bet those guys have got a few stories to tell. Are they NASA or Air Force?

Probably NASA as they're flying a NASA aircraft.

The last time I talked to the project office, they were all NASA.  

When I flew that aircraft, it was an Air Force plane.  We occasionally had NASA personnel flying as back seat equipment operator.  Most of the time, we (AF) flew the NASA payloads.  They just told us where they wanted us to fly and how to operate the equipment.

I became friendly with one of the NASA back-seaters.  His name was Robin...I wish I  could remember more of their names (that was in the late 60s...crs anymore).  Most of the NASA people I worked with were equipment specialists.  I think they had 2 people qualified to fly back seat with us.  That qualification took a long time, including pressure suit training, and it was more cost effective to have an all AF crew.

enough rambling...

Cheers,

Larry

[Thomas ESA]

Well that's camera's pointing at the vehicle, don't forget you can also ride in the Shuttle too
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4865

[James Lowe1]

Seems we've got a couple of thousand people coming through to this thread for some reason.

For those people. The guys take these images for this purpose:

Checking on the Shuttle on the ascent for anything the ground cameras might miss: Here's some samples of what they actually take:

PS Stick around and check the site out. We've got FAR cooler stuff that this here.

[dstanley]

You've been Farked, as it were.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2372904

[Chris Bergin]

dstanley - 26/10/2006  5:38 PM

You've been Farked, as it were.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2372904

Thanks for coming on the site and letting us know.

Looking at the backend, these images have gained attention (number of click throughs to here) from:

digg.com               2910
livejournal.com      1156
kottke.org                   530
stumbleupon.com   218
bloglines.com   116
fark.com       113   
worldchanging.com   91

Most of them seem to be starting with "Images from the ISS" - with people then rightly correcting with "way too low to be ISS".

I hope some of those people have stayed and looked around the site, as these images are cool, but nothing close to the coolest stuff we've published. WB-57 images are pretty much a usual thing.

Nice image of the WB-57 in the Fark link though!

[reubenb]

This was posted on the somethingawful.com forums:

I work for the United Space Alliance. My boss got them from Jeff Williams, the Expedition 13 astronaut who took the pictures.

Edit: The reason it doesn't look like it, is it's zoomed in and from an angle. It's obviously not looking straight down. The ISS is many miles "behind" the Shuttle at this point and the camera is zoomed in.

Can anyone confirm?

[Chris Bergin]

reubenb - 30/10/2006  3:41 AM

This was posted on the somethingawful.com forums:

I work for the United Space Alliance. My boss got them from Jeff Williams, the Expedition 13 astronaut who took the pictures.

Edit: The reason it doesn't look like it, is it's zoomed in and from an angle. It's obviously not looking straight down. The ISS is many miles "behind" the Shuttle at this point and the camera is zoomed in.

Can anyone confirm?

These images are 100 percent from the WB-57s. There is zero doubt to this. Besides, any ISS images are downloaded via KU band etc (to JSC etc. Not USA)....not brought back down by hand.

(Edited down to save people reading about me babbling on about how these are from the WB-57).

[Mark Max Q]

reubenb - 29/10/2006  9:41 PM

This was posted on the somethingawful.com forums:

I work for the United Space Alliance. My boss got them from Jeff Williams, the Expedition 13 astronaut who took the pictures.

Edit: The reason it doesn't look like it, is it's zoomed in and from an angle. It's obviously not looking straight down. The ISS is many miles "behind" the Shuttle at this point and the camera is zoomed in.

Can anyone confirm?

That was clever then. The ISS is moving at 17,500 mph, but has hardly moved in the images during the Shuttle's different stages of ascent. Funny as hell. Some kid is having a laugh on that site.