The End of an EraDennis Biela and his team document the final days of the NASA space shuttle program. |
Article By Jennifer Gidman Images by Dennis Biela and The Last Shuttle team |
Since the first orbital flight of Columbia in 1981, 134 more space shuttles have ascended from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. The 135th and final shuttle launch of Atlantis took place on July 8 — and photographer Dennis Biela and his team were on-site at the Cape to document that liftoff and start putting the finishing touches on The Last Shuttle, a project that’s been a year and a half in the making. |
This massive undertaking isn’t simply a photographic documentary: It’s an immersive multimedia experience that uses photography and cinematography, as well as infrared, surround sound, 360 VR, and 3D motion and stills, to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the space shuttle program as it’s never been told, according to Biela. The project started thanks to a collaboration between LightSpeed Media, Biela’s company, and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. “We create virtual tours of artifacts,” he explains. “At the Smithsonian, you can go up to a kiosk and view the interior of an airplane, for example. When the museum opened up a new facility, it hired my company to create these virtual tours.” |
When the Smithsonian found out that it would be adding the retired shuttle Discovery to its James S. McDonnell Space Hangar, Biela asked if he could photograph the new artifact. “They wanted me to photograph it when it was still down at the Cape and in its prime — by the time it comes up to the museum, it’s more or less stripped out,” he says. “Even though NASA has its own internal photographers, they’re stretched thin, like employees of any large organization. So I decided to put together a team to document not only the shuttle but the shuttle program in general. We partnered up with the San Diego Air and Space Museum as the lead agency and started looking for funding and support.” |
The scope of the project, however, quickly magnified. “Originally, we were just going to photograph the launches, shoot a few interiors, and do some time-lapse work, and we’d be done,” Biela says. “However, we started to learn all about the history of the program while we were in Florida. For instance, our escort down there, Roy, is a former NASA engineer who worked on the Apollo and the shuttle program — he’s a wealth of information. How could we do this project and not interview people like him? One thing led to another: A curator we were working with came up to us and said, ‘I’d really love to have pictures of the signs here; no one ever really thinks of photographing them.’ Then we found out about the tradition where the children of all of NASA’s astronauts draw a picture for each mission. There’s an entire hallway filled with the kids’ artwork, so we had to document that, too!” |
Preparing for the Grand Finale |
The Last Shuttle team was on-site for the Discovery launch in February, the May launch of the Endeavor, and the final Atlantis launch. The logistics for such projects are complex. Two sets of time-lapse cameras worked continuously to capture the shuttles in 3D as they were prepped for their final journey. “That doubled the amount of work we had to do,” says Biela. “These cameras took one picture every minute for 15 hours a day, and they were running since last year. We had a photographer down in Florida who went over to the space center every couple of weeks with empty memory cards and fresh batteries to swap things out.”
Tamron SP 17-50mm f2.8 at ISO 100 f4.5 @ 1/25th hand held |
For the final liftoff of Atlantis, up to 40 cameras were set to be deployed. “There were 24 cameras set up on the launch pad; all of the cameras were firing in sync at the exact same time,” Biela explains. “Using the images from these cameras, we’ll be able to make a movie where you’ll not only be able to watch the shuttle lift off — you’ll also be able to rotate the shuttle and see it from any angle.”
Tamron SP 28-75mm f/2.8 at 35mm ISO 100 f8 @ 1600th shutter speed |
For ongoing video interviews of team members, current and former NASA employees, and visitors to the launch site, Biela and his team used the Tamron SP 17-50mm F/2.8 VC lens. “We’ve been doing a lot of video work throughout the project, and that lens is great for on-site interviews,” he says. “The 17-50’s larger f-stop plus good depth-of-field makes for great cinematography. And even though we have digital SLR grips made for cinematography, the Vibration Compensation on this lens helps us to keep everything even more stable while we’re talking to people.” |
Bob Fisher was one of the team members conducting interviews using the 17-50 lens. “I love using the 17-50,” says Fisher. “Its fast 2.8 maximum aperture, sharpness, and contrast make it an ideal lens for documentary-style video. The Vibration Compensation works really well to take out the jitters I get with unstabilized lenses. Plus, I can get one stop faster than I could with the previous lens I was using, which makes a world of difference in uncontrolled situations.” (See below for a short YouTube clip Fisher put together using the 17-50, as well as additional interview and crew note clips). |
These video interviews will be incorporated into the larger multimedia presentation set to be repurposed and used at museums across the country — including the San Diego Air and Space Museum — to educate future generations of this soon-to-be bygone era. Historians, schoolchildren, and aerospace enthusiasts in general will be able to see and hear first-hand accounts of what it was like working behind the scenes for the space shuttle program through the years, as well as view the reactions of visitors who were able to witness the final liftoffs at Kennedy Space Center. |
Logistical Challenges |
Biela’s team had to search for creative workarounds for many of the setup scenarios. “We had a lot of custom-made equipment,” he says. “The aluminum housings for some of our cameras, for example, were built by the San Diego Air and Space Museum’s restoration shop. For the 24 cameras on the launch pad, we built our own wooden housings — after the whole project is done, we may be able to use them as limited-edition NASA birdhouses!” |
The team’s electronics were kept dry in 4x6-inch Pelican cases. To save money on tripods, Biela tried to purchase less-expensive surveyor’s tripods and persuade manufacturers to donate or lend others. The team stockpiled much of the equipment at the home of a couple that used to work at NASA — and whose son, Jeff Ross, is an assisting photographer from Naperville. “We had their garage just filled with stuff,” laughs Biela. |
Even setting up the timers on some of the remote cameras posed its own peculiar challenge. “Cape Kennedy is a wildlife preserve with a high concentration of birds,” Biela says. “We couldn’t use wireless remotes [for safety and security reasons], so we had to come up with different ways to fire off the cameras. We could have set up a tripod with a sound trigger on it so when the shuttle launched, the camera would start shooting — but in the middle of a field, it’s the highest thing standing; birds land on it and set off the triggers. One camera for one of the launches kept running and ran through all of its cards, giving us 8,000 JPEGs of nothing.” |
Because the cost of triggers with built-in timers was quite high, electronics whiz Fisher figured out a way to incorporate a digital timer used to turn lamps on into a sound trigger used for high-speed photography. “Then, because we used equipment from all different manufacturers, we modified our triggers to work with all of these different cameras,” says Biela. |
Settings for the actual liftoff are pretty straightforward, according to Biela, whether it’s a daytime or nighttime launch. “Shoot at 1000th at f/8,” he asserts. “This captures the flames so you have some burnout where it’s bright, but the flames still look good. Digital cameras carry so much dynamic range that you can usually adjust out the rest of it. On the last launch, it was overcast, so some of the photographers exposed for the normal light, and the flames were all bright and blown out — there was nothing in the detail.” |
Both daytime and nighttime launches are spectacular, says Biela, but there’s a downside to a night launch. “You get a bright light, then it’s gone off of the launch pad,” he says. “With a daytime launch, you can keep tracking the shuttle as it makes it way up into the sky — it’s an amazing sight.” |
For more information on The Last Shuttle project, go to www.thelastshuttle.com or to the team’s Facebook page. |