Images Images Everywhere!

Well, anyone who knows me can tell you that I am a huge airplane geek. I am particularly a fan of historical experimental aircraft, and as such am a frequent vistitor to the Dryden Flight Research Center photo archive. While the photos are only available as JPEG's, they are available for the downloading in a wide variety of resolutions some of which are quite large. Just for example, the vectored thrust XF-15 pictured here was available as large as 1600 x 1200. Some of the images are available in even larger formats.

What I also find convenient about the archive is the logical way that it has been designed. If you are looking for a particular aircraft, you just go to that model grouping (F-15 Eagle for the example above) and scroll through until you find the specific aircraft that you are searching for. Let's say for example that I need a picture of an X-15 (not to be confused with the F-15 in the above picture) perhaps with a pilot standing nearby. I just go to the X-15 section, and the archive gives me convenient sort of page flipping method of scrolling through the pictures until I find the one that suits my needs. This particular photo of an X-15 actually was available at a resolution of 5100 x 4000! I could put that on a billboard...

Another aspect that I find helpful is the amount of information that they provide with the photos. Just in case you are wondering who the silver suited gentleman standing in front of the X-15 is, the archive gives us the following info: Aircraft X-15, Number ECN-413, NASA research pilot Milt Thompson stands next to the X-15 #3 ship after a research flight. Milton 0. Thompson was a research pilot, Chief Engineer and Director of Research Projects during a long career at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. Thompson was hired as an engineer at the Flight Research Facility on March 19, 1956, when it was still under the auspices of NACA. He became a research pilot on May 25, 1958. Thompson was one of the 12 NASA, Air Force, and Navy pilots to fly the X-15 rocket-powered research aircraft between 1959 and 1968. He began flying X-15s on October 29, 1963. He flew the aircraft 14 times during the following two years, reaching a maximum speed of 3723 mph (Mach 5.42) and a peak altitude of 214,100 feet on separate flights. Thompson concluded his active flying career in 1968, becoming Director of Research Projects. In 1975 he was appointed Chief Engineer and retained the position until his death on August 8, 1993. The X-15 was a rocket-powered aircraft 50 ft long with a wingspan of 22 ft. It was a missile-shaped vehicle with an unusual wedge-shaped vertical tail, thin stubby wings, andunique side fairings that extended along the side of the fuselage. The X-15 weighed about 14,000 lb empty and approximately 34,000 lb at launch. The XLR-99 rocket engine, manufactured by Thiokol Chemical Corp., was pilot controlled and was capable of developing 57,000 lb of thrust. North American Aviation built three X-15 aircraft for the program.The X-15 research aircraft was developed to provide in-flight information and data on aerodynamics, structures, flight controls, and the physiological aspects of high-speed, high-altitude flight. A follow-on program used the aircraft as a testbed to carry various scientific experiments beyond the Earth's atmosphere on a repeated basis. For flight in the dense air of the usable atmosphere, the X-15 used conventional aerodynamic controls such as rudders on the vertical stabilizers to control yaw and movable horizontal stabilizers to control pitch when moving in synchronization or roll when moved differentially. For flight in the thin air outside of the appreciable Earth's atmosphere, the X-15 used a ballistic control system. Hydrogen peroxide thrust rockets located on the nose of the aircraft provided pitch and yaw control. Those on the wings provided roll control. Because of the large fuel consumption, the X-15 was air launched from a B-52 aircraft at 45,000 ft and a speed of about 500 mph. Depending on the mission, the rocket engine provided thrust for the first 80 to 120 sec of flight. The remainder of the normal 10 to 11 min. flight was powerless and ended with a 200-mph glide landing. Generally, one of two types of X-15 flight profiles was used; a high-altitude flight plan that called for the pilot to maintain a steep rate of climb, or a speed profile that called for the pilot to push over and maintain a level altitude. The X-15 was flown over a period of nearly 10 years -- June 1959 to Oct. 1968 -- and set the world's unofficial speed and altitude records of 4,520 mph (Mach 6.7) and 354,200 ft in a program to investigate all aspects of manned hypersonic flight. Information gained from the highly successful X-15 program contributed to the development of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo manned spaceflight programs, and also the Space Shuttle program. The X-15s made a total of 199 flights, and were manufactured by North American Aviation.

Now that is all of the information that I could ever need regarding a single photograph! I put the info into a very small font because I figured that very few people would actually want to read it. Just take my word for it, it is a very in depth explanation of what is in the photograph. It does not however, give any information about the photo itself such as; who took it, what sort of equipment were they using, or the camera settings such as f-stop, shutter speed, etc. I can't imagine how this could be important, but if the information was available, it would have been nice if they had included it. It would have also been nice if they provided raw uncompressed files such as .tif or .nef (Nikon) but since the resolutions available are so large, this is hardly a major concern.

All in all however, I am very impressed with this particular archive. It is easy to use, free, and doesn't require the user to go through any sort of registration in order to download and use the images. I will admit to being ignorant of the precise rules regarding use of these photos, but NASA does provide a page describing their privacy and usage policies. Quite frankly, I was too lazy to read it. I just wanted to look at all of the pretty pictures of some of my favorite X-Planes!

Digitalizing Historical Consciousness

I will be honest; I dislike authors who write like Claudio Fogu in Digitalizing Historical Consciousness. As Shakespeare once pointed out, brevity is the soul of wit, and in this essay, Fogu is anything but witty. To me, the purpose of writing is to communicate your ideas. In order for this to happen, the reader has to understand what you have written. Writers like Fogu seem to go far out of their way to insure just the opposite. Consider the following sentence; “Quite grand in scale and endowed with a system that reproduces and modulates the sound of Latin speech, as one is ‘driven’ around the Roman Forum, the digital Forum lacks systematic means to make a ‘rigorous and systematic distinction between proofs and probabilities,’ which (in theory) constitute the epistemological creed of microhistorians.” (Fogu, 114) I will be perfectly honest and say that I have no idea what the author is trying to say in this sentence.

However, I will try to discuss what I believe that the author is trying to say in this essay. I believe that Fogu is addressing the idea that historical simulation is different from historical representation in several key ways. When a person plays a video game, they are not reliving a perfect historical reenactment of a particular event. Take the JFK Reloaded game for example. Although I have not played the game myself, I can assume that there is some sort of learning curve associated with trying to shoot the President. It seems likely that the player generally gets better at it with each successive attempt. In fact, the player is getting better at playing the game and not necessarily better at doing what Oswald did so many years ago. A keyboard and mouse do not behave in the same way as a sniper rifle.

Oswald, on the other hand did not get successive attempts to improve his performance. Likewise, he was holding a sniper rifle and not a mouse or keypad. The video game in this case does not recreate the situation experienced by Oswald. It does however educate the player as to some of the variables that existed in Dallas the day Kennedy was shot. In the essay, Fogu discusses the attempt to perfectly simulate the sun-angle in the simulation of Rome on a given day. Fogu quite correctly points out that the light inside a Roman building on a certain day would have as much to do with the weather patterns [rain, cloud cover, etc.] as would the sun angle at a particular hour. I may be completely wrong about this, but I believe that Fogu is trying to say that in this way, historical simulations may mis-lead as much as they educate.

If that is what the author is saying [and I’m not completely sure that it is] then I agree. However, historical simulation does have its role. You may not be able to simulate the Roman Forum as it was at a particular moment, but you can give the visitor and idea of what is was like in general and leave it up to them to make the leap as to what it was like during a particular historical event. You cannot recreate exactly what Oswald dealt with as he assassinated the President, but you can further educate the visitor of the exhibit or player of the game on some of the intricacies of a specific historical event.

How Much Is Too Much?

Having watched “JFK Reloaded” several times now, I am particularly struck by the comments regarding the video. The passion and emotion surrounding this particular historical event are clearly very strong even though nearly a half a century has gone by since the assassination. The death of President Kennedy has not yet been relegated to the dust-bin of history and will likely remain a controversial topic for many more years.


What surprised me the most was that many of the commenters were primarily concerned with their particular score in the game. There were even congratulatory comments aimed at the game player’s particularly high score. A few of the comments focus on the graphic nature of the wound Kennedy suffers, and a few more saw the whole exercise as an attempt to exploit the death of a beloved (by some) public figure.

While all of this banter is interesting, I suppose that the most crucial question is, is this a tool of historical education or not? Is this game a proper way to educate the public about an especially gruesome event or just a puerile and grotesque way to emulate a vicious crime in a virtual and consequence free environment? The answer is yes…

It seems likely that games like this do allow some to live out their fantasies and commit a heinous act while at the same time forgoing any of the consequences that ordinarily would accompany such an act. At the same time however, the game players are themselves investigating the intricacies of the historical event in a way that many of them might never do in any other sort of medium. Sure they may be congratulating each other on the high score, but each and every one of them has in essence “lived” the murder of a President in a way that they never could or would in book, movie, or static museum display.

I disagree with those who criticize the gore of the game. The blood and gray matter were there in Dallas. They are part of the history of the event. To leave them out would be a disservice to the story. Sure, children under a certain age should be shielded from the ugliness of some historical events but that certainly holds true of any presentation.

The Kennedy assassination (John F.) still maintains a firm hold on many. Games like this are sure to stir up controversy as well as educate players on the facts of the event. I just wish that the assassination of President McKinley and other nearly forgotten historical events were as well presented and remembered.