Astronaut's-eye view of space tourism, space travel
Illustration Credit & ©: Hana Gartstein.
Few have seen Earth from space. But that might change in the coming years, as the space tourism industry takes off. What’s more, the U.S. space agency, NASA, has bold plans in the coming decades to return to the moon, and set foot on the planet Mars.
Earth & Sky’s Jorge Salazar spoke with Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and command the Space Shuttle. She talked about the new book America in Space: NASA’s First Fifty Years, and she spoke of her experiences as an astronaut, and the future of space travel.
Press “listen” or “download” above to hear this interview.
About the image above:
Astronaut Eileen Collins described her first time seeing a sunrise from a space shuttle. But here’s an even more amazing sight: an eclipse of the sun, by the Earth, as seen from the moon. Graphic artist Hana Gartstein (Haifa, Israel) created this composite illustration. It’s an Apollo 17 image of Earth, surrounded with a red-tinted haze as light from the eclipsed sun streams through our planet’s atmosphere. You can see Earth’s night side, still faintly illuminated by the moon, even as the eclipse takes place. Because Earth’s disk as seen from the moon appears almost four times bigger than the sun’s disk, the faint corona we see surrounding an eclipsed sun would be largely obscured in an eclipse of the sun, seen from the lunar surface.
space tourism should also include the millions pumped into the local economy of an area where launches occur.if you want you can view a launch of the shuttle from anywhere between lake city fla. and naples fla. about 5 hour and 30 min of driving between the two.but a launch can be seen and is the most awe inspiring event you can witness, behind the first time you view the rocky mountains and the first time you snorkle the florida keys.