Thursday, November 29, 2007 – To the Moon

Yes, I worked for many years at Hughes, and many of those years at the Space and Communications Group – the satellite folks. And I was the one who wrote and produced the in-house documentary film on Howard Hughes and his empire. All that was sold to Boeing in the late nineties – after General Motors and Raytheon had held it for a bit and didn't seem to know what to do with it all.  But before the Hughes Electronics empire dissolved, they left their mark in the town – "The Aerospace Mural" – Scott Bloomfield - Main and Mariposa, El Segundo. 

Here we have the Wright Brothers and Amelia Earhart and Howard and all.  El Segundo, on the south edge of LAX, is home to a major part of the Aerospace industry – Hughes, TRW, Raytheon, The Aerospace Corporation, and the Air Force Space Command, until recently. The first geosynchronous communication satellite was thought up and built a mile or two north of the mural, as were, for a time, almost all communications satellites. In fact, much on this wall was produced locally, even if it ended up on the moon or beyond.  Howard sort of peaked with the Spruce Goose in 1947 – but others carried on. It was a good time, and it was a good ride.

The mural is on the west wall of the local Masonic Lodge – also see The El Segundo Mural Program.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik