U-2 spy plane captures stunning images 13 miles above Earth

[Hindustani78]

Photographer Christopher Michel riding in U-2 spy plane captures images 13 miles above Earth | Daily Mail Online
8 January 2015 | Updated: 08:40 GMT, 8 January 2015
At the height of the Cold War, the view seen from a U-2 spy plane would have been top secret.

Now that tensions have cooled, military officials are much more willing to share this rare perspective of earth with civilians.

Photographer Christopher Michel was recently invited to ride in one of the spy planes to photograph Earth from 70,000 feet up - approximately 13 miles - and the resulting images are stunning and also a little hair-raising.


A long way down: Photographer Christopher Michel was recently invited to ride aboard a U-2 spy plane for a journey 70,000 feet above Earth. Above, the view out of his window over the San Francisco Bay Area

Secret missions: The U-2 spy plane was developed in 1955 to conduct reconnaissance missions, mostly over the former USSR. It was so successful that it is still in use today

Above it all: The 'Dragon Lady' was built to fly so high that it would be out of the reach of surface-to-air missiles. Above, another view of Northern California taken by Michel

Quite alone: When he took the pictures, Michel was one of 11 people that far from Earth. The others were astronauts living on the International Space Station and a Chinese capsule

 

[Donatello]

60 years on and the these machines don't fail to impress. Shows what mankind can do when they really absolutely need to do something. Sad to say that skies would never again be graced by the likes of SR-71, U2, Concorde etc.

These machines should never have to be decommissioned......it is imperative that the future generations know what it means to engineer and craft such beauties.

 

[Hindustani78]

60 years on and the these machines don't fail to impress. Shows what mankind can do when they really absolutely need to do something. Sad to say that skies would never again be graced by the likes of SR-71, U2, Concorde etc.

These machines should never have to be decommissioned......it is imperative that the future generations know what it means to engineer and craft such beauties.

So you think that no up gradation has done in here. I think United states is having more advance technology now.

 

[Donatello]

So you think that no up gradation has done in here. I think United states is having more advance technology now.

The advent of Space surveillance made these planes obsolete. But these planes have a character of their own that no satellite can match.

 

[Hindustani78]

The advent of Space surveillance made these planes obsolete. But these planes have a character of their own that no satellite can match.

Its more about Surveillance and in case of emergency these planes can fly anytime. I think this is the whole message of this article.