As you may or may not know from reading my past posts. I
have a myriad of topics that captivate me.
Some are just subjects that hold my attention others can range from
fascination to downright obsessions of mine.
But I especially love when two of my favorites can come together. Recently that has been happening, thanks to a
few astronauts on the International Space Station.
I have a lifelong love of the space program. Perhaps that is because I was born just
slightly over a year before the Apollo 11 moon landing. I can still remember seeing the final moon
landing broadcast on television. I
watched through Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab, into the Shuttle program and continuing
through the ongoing ISS missions.
I also have a love of geography, specifically,
cartography. The study of maps. I have sat and read an atlas the same way
other people sit and read the latest Steven King novel. I look for the detail, the proximity of
cities and nations. I pore over the
relief maps to get a sense of natural boundaries and how nature influenced who
we became and where we move and live.
When satellite imagery became part of all internet based map
programs, I was thrilled. I could now
get a look at both maps, virtually at the same time. I could toggle back and forth and zoom in,
right down to my house if I felt so inclined.
And I have. This is where two of
my interests began to blend into one.
Recently, as I mentioned above, a few astronauts have been
fostering this melding. They have been
sending out, via Twitter and other sources, photos of cities, landmarks and
prominent physical features of our world down below. I know they are not as detailed as some of
the images already available, but there is something more to it.
Two of the astronauts currently staffing the ISS are an American,
Shane Kimbrough and Frenchman Thomas Pesquet.
They send out photos almost on a daily basis of what they see as they
orbit our world. Big deal you say? Well, yes, it is. It is more than just the photo they send down
to us. It is what they tell us as
well.
When I see the tweet, pop up in my feed with an image fresh
from space, I immediately study it intently.
But what is great about what they say is the fact that they don’t just
tell you what you are seeing. They
relate to what is in the picture. From
following and watching these pioneers, I not only get to live vicariously
through them on the Space Station, I also learn a little about them. In recent days, they have sent pictures of
the launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida shortly after the launch of a cargo
ship on the way to them. They
congratulated the SpaceX team on the successful landing of the first stage of
the reusable rocket. I have seen Thomas
Pesquet’s home town in France and learned that he would love to visit
Beirut. I learned that Shane Kimbrough
is collecting photos of airports from space and sends out “good morning” or “good
night” wishes to cities all over the world almost every day.
Then there are the earth’s natural features that they send
to us. In recent months, we have seen
sand dunes in the Sahara and Brazil. We
received a spectacular photo of the Hawaiian Islands with the sun glinting off
of the Pacific’s surface. We’ve also
been treated to sights like the Grand Canyon and stops all around the Mediterranean. We receive beautiful underwater features like
reefs and new islands just breaking the surface and then there are the
volcanoes from New Zealand to Iceland.
All sights to behold. We even see
the not so spectacular scars we are leaving on the surface in the form of receding
water lines, deforestation and climate change.
But I will save that for another time.
All of these wonderful, sometimes tragic, always stunning
images link me to two of the subjects that I have held close to my heart for
years. I know the current group of
scientists who are also just ordinary people fascinated by the same things we
all are, have limited missions. I can
only hope that the future specialists assigned to the Space Station will continue
to send these beautiful photos and maybe a little piece of themselves while
they are at it, back to those of us who can only dream of being in their place.
If you would like the chance to see these wonderful photos
on Twitter, please check out the International Space Station @Space_Station or
to follow the astronauts directly Thomas Pesquet @Thom_astro or Shane Kimbrough
@astro_kimbrough
In the meantime, I’m going to keep matching up the photos
they send with my maps. We can all keep
looking up but don’t forget to take the time for what they can show us as they
look down.
Mount Vesuvius and the city of Naples, Italy
The cities of Philadelphia and New York, USA
The Hawaiian Archipelago
