An astronaut's view of the Pacific Ocean

by NASA 41-D Mission Crew NASA 41-D Mission Crew

Scenic lookouts like this one are the privilege of an elite few, including astronaut Mike Mullane, who was on board the shuttle Discovery in September 1984 when a crewmate snapped this photo 184 miles above Earth. The orbiter's tailfin points to the Pacific Ocean. "Since the autopilot was holding the shuttle with its top to the Earth, I now had the planet in my face," writes Mullane in his memoir, Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut, due out this month. "In all my other life experiences speed meant noise. Now I was traveling at nearly 5 miles per second and there was only silence. It was as if I were hovering in a balloon."

Want to learn more about breakthroughs in electronics, medicine, nanotech, and more?
Subscribe to Popular Science and enter to win $5,000!

0 Comments



Download Our iPhone App

Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing



Follow Us On Twitter

Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed



Become a Fan On Facebook

Share links with friends, comment on stories and more


November 2009: Astronaut 3.0

Inside NASA's astronaut bootcamp and the grueling new training regimen for deep space. Plus, ten young geniuses shaking up science today, one writer's quest to analyze every man-made chemical in her body and more.

Check out the issue's full contents online here

Popular Science Photo Pool


Share your photos in the Pop Sci pool at www.flickr.com!
tags_sprite.png
POP_embeddedForm_cover_May09.jpg