J n

J n

Regardless of the physical ability to shoot the action, they should’ve been live when the deed was done. It’s widely regarded that the most dramatic and historically valuable piece of live reporting from the last hundred years is the Hindenberg disaster, for them to not broadcast live during the moment is in my opinion reprehensible, and in the best case pure cowardice. I just don’t understand it.

During the glide when the SS1 became visible the broadcast was for the first minute or so of the reporter looking to the sky saying: “do you see it?” Well, of course we did’t since they were not even pointing the camera up. Then when they did point the camera up, initially they had all three crafts in the image, they chose to home in on the starship. Due to a previous career as a pilot I knew immediately that that was not SS1 it took them probably 30 seconds for them to unzoom and refame to the SS1. Someone was asleep at the wheel.

In my opinion (not expert at all since I’m not a journalist) they screwed up. They couldn’t have done worse. They weren’t there live at the critical moment, and the cameramen didn’t know what to shoot when they were live. It’s possible that it was difficult to discern from the ground which craft was which, but a knowledgeable technician should have been on the monitor telling the cameraman which of the three craft was of interest. That didn’t happen. They zoomed the chase plane and left it there. Granted a Beech Starship is a futuristic looking craft, but if you’re a reputable network you’d like to do better.

Man am I pissed off. What is wrong with CNN? They missed the moment. At 7:47 they had a weather broadcast … quizzing each other about lightning. My guess is they didn’t want to broadcast it if something went wrong.

I can guess a few things about this because I was there. I also watched a recording of the CNN coverage after I got home in Silicon Valley in the evening. I’ll have my pictures posted tonight or tomorrow.

I would guess that they never switched to the video of the rocket boost because, viewed from the Mojave Airport, it was directly into the sun. Miles Obrien or some editor probably agonized over that and decided not to bother with the shot. I did take pictures that turned out better than nothing but certainly not professional quality.

And during the re-entry and glide, when they finally went to mojave they didn’t even play a recording of the engine lightup. Their coverage was pathetic. When they first went to SpaceShipOne during the glide, they didn’t know what they were looking at, they zoomed in on the Beech Starship chaseplane at first not even showing us the space-ship.

Initially, it was difficult to determine which spec was which when it came back. With my zoom lens, I also accidentally got the Starship first when SpaceShipOne returned.

The landing turned out to be more in front of the crowd (which was near the beginning of the runway used for landing) rather than the VIP/press area (which was near the center of the airport.)

And all the while during the glide the airport PA was announcing who knows what, and they’re just chatting about the basics of the airplane instead of letting us know what MC was announcing. Just unbelievable. I still haven’t seen the lightup.

This is a part I can’t really guess – was OBrien ignoring the PA system or could he not hear it where he was? The press was at the VIP area. I watched from the mere-mortals section where the big crowd was. In our area the PA worked for about a minute and then we never heard it again, except at a distance. The system seemed not well tested.

I’d be interested to see the in-flight video of the rocket boost. That was the part we couldn’t see well from the airport. The takeoff and landing were basically right in front of us.

But this DOES affect their lives. The world changed yesterday, a little, but it did. Space no longer belongs only to governments, it belongs to public from now on.
If this as of yet ignorant public wants, they now can take it, or their children can.

So there you go– can’t get much more mainstream USofA than Jay.  Maybe the guy will bring footage of what CNN failed to show.