This “Elephant Cage” in Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska is part of the DOD World Wide High Frequency Direction Finding System. More information on the system is availble from the Federation of American Scientists.

Thanks: Gabe

More spaceships!

We’ve already posted Cape Canaveral, but it’s worth noting that you can also see a space shuttle with its boosters lying nearby, as well as the vehicle assembly building where they put all this stuff together. Jim Thompson has an excellent annotated flickr image of the whole area, thanks Jim

Thanks this time to Jim Thompson, Editfish, Terry Foster, Adam Latz, Peter Bonnett, Adam Orford, Bill Mullins, Chinmay, Papapenguin, David and John Neilson.

The 70 metre DSS-14 Deep Space Antenna was built by NASA in 1966 and services radio and radar astronomy projects, as well as occasionally tracking long-distance spacecraft. Apparently it weighs nearly 6 million pounds (2,721,554 kilos).

Thanks: Bill

Long Beach, CA is a major port of entry for goods imported into the US via ship. This view gives a nice perspective on the sheer scale of the operation. Note the thousands of containers used in the process. Panning slightly to the right will also show a lone Queen Mary docked next to a large shiny object I guess is a fuel storage container.

Thanks: Todd Holden, John Neilson & Joe

Reader Tim Gregory found the 80 foot tall world’s largest tyre in Michigan. It apparently started life as a giant tyre-shaped ferris wheel at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, and was moved to Allen Park, Michigan to be a roadside attraction in 1966. According to this page at roadsideamerica.com it was once punctured with the world’s largest nail as a publicity stunt.