In the exhibit down the hall.........to the west.......about early flight.............the short film.........where u can watch Link laugh Eddie.............the narrator.............asks u to think of the military and commercial potential of a device that can go from Calai........a city in France............Sp?.........to Dover in England in just 30 minutes.............of course the English channel separate the two countries......on the dc metro posters.........GEICO..........military and federal jobs......................

ORBITAL VISTAS THE EARTH FROM SPACE

Today we have the technology to look at Earth from space. From this vantage point we can view huge areas at a glance, scan whole continents, and trace the courses of immense rivers and mountain ranges. Looking down in this special way expands our narrow surface view and allows a better understanding of the vast world around us.

Satellites View The Land

Satellites, such as the Landsat series, circle the globe every day and record views of familiar places in a new perspective.

Great Salt Lake, Utah. The color difference is caused by microorganisms trapped on one side of a causeway spanning the lake.
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, U.S. Geological Survey

The Grand Canyon
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, U.S. Geological Survey

Landsat mosaic of Hawaii
Image supplied by NASA's Virtually Hawaii project

Hubbard Glacier, Alaska.
Courtesy of EROS Data Center, U.S. Geological Survey

Landsat scene of Mt. St. Helens before its violent eruption in May, 1980.
Courtesy of ERIM International, Inc.

Landsat scene of Mt. St. Helens after its violent eruption in May, 1980.
Courtesy of ERIM International, Inc.

Rocket Camera

This camera was the first to provide motion pictures of the Earth's surface from an altitude greater than 480 kilometers (300 miles). In a 15-minute flight atop a Thor missile on May 12, 1959, the General Electric camera recorded 10.7 meters (35 feet) of 16mm film.
Courtesy of General Electric Company

Project Mercury

The Atlas Mountains of North Africa were photographed by John Glenn on the flight of Friendship 7 in 1962.
NASA Photograph

John Glenn photographed clouds over the Pacific Ocean on the first orbit of his Mercury flight.
NASA Photograph

The coast of Florida as seen from a Mercury spacecraft at an altitude of about 160 kilometers (100 miles).
NASA Photograph

Ansco Autoset 35mm camera used by John Glenn on Friendship 7, the first U.S. manned orbital mission. Glenn used standard and ultraviolet-sensitive film in the camera which had been modified for left-handed operation.
NASA Photograph

Project Gemini

Gemini photo of sand dunes in western Algeria.
NASA Photograph

Gemini 12 photo of the Makran Ranges of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz taken in 1966.
NASA Photograph

Gemini camera used in astronaut training. The Hasselblad camera with a Zeiss lens is similar to an Earth observation camera carried on the later Gemini missions.

Apollo

Apollo 9 scene of desert terrain in central Algeria in 1969.
NASA Photograph

Remote region of Mauritania as viewed by Apollo 9. The circular feature is the Richat structure. The eroded dome structure is 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) wide.
NASA Photograph.

Skylab

Scene of Pyramid Lake in Western Nevada taken with the Skylab Earth Terrain camera.
NASA Photograph

Lake Sakakawea cuts across the terrain of North Dakota in this photograph from the Skylab 3 mission in 1973.
NASA Photograph

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

In 1975, American astronauts on the joint U.S./U.S.S.R. Apollo-Soyuz Test Project photographed this view of sand dunes in Argentina.
NASA Photograph

Apollo-Soyuz scene looking south over the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Suez, and the Red Sea.
NASA Photograph

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program

European night lights. The U.S. Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite provided this image in the visible range at night. Note the lights in Italy and the natural gas burn-off in Algeria (bottom left). Defense Meteorological Satellites provide day and night imagery in both visible and infrared wavelengths.
Courtesy of National Snow and Ice Data Center

City lights. Major U.S. cities are highlighted in this night view taken by the Defense Meteorological Satellite.
Courtesy of National Snow and Ice Data Center

Space Shuttle

Hand-held camera photo of sand dunes in Algeria from the second Space Shuttle mission.
NASA Photograph

Space shuttle view of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
NASA Photograph

Large Format Camera

Flown on the space shuttle in October 1984, the 1,000-pound Large Format Camera provided more than 2,000 black-and-white, color, and infrared photographs of the Earth's surface. From an altitude of 240 kilometers (about 150 miles) a single Large Format frame will cover more than 60,000 square kilometers (23,400 square miles) with enough resolution to distinguish buildings and roads.
Full scale model on display in the Museum courtesy of Itek Corporation

Encounter Bay, on the south coast of Australia, is shown on this false color full-frame image from the Large Format Camera.
Courtesy of NSSDC, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

A small portion of a Large Format Camera scene was enlarged to show this view of the city of Venice (top left) and the mouth of the Po River.
Courtesy of NSSDC, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Spacelab Metric Camera

Metric Camera view of the east coast of Africa. The Metric Camera was part of the European Space Agency's Spacelab experiment which flew on the ninth space shuttle mission. A modified version of a Zeiss aerial survey camera, it was used to acquire about 1,000 black-and-white and color infrared photographs with a ground resolution of about 20 meters (66 feet).
European Space Agency Photograph, courtesy of DLR