Site of the year (so far, for me): International Space Station live video of Earth

[MetroMPG]

Tim (daox) is going to laugh when he reads this...

I'm enough of a nerd I'm going to tell everyone who might be interested: the International Space Station is streaming live video 24 hours a day (where there's coverage - it seems to drop out over parts of Asia, the Indian Ocean & some of the middle east).

You can view it from NASA's TV page, in combination with this live, updating Google map showing the ISS position over the ground (or water) in real time: LIVE REAL TIME SATELLITE AND SPACE SHUTTLE TRACKING

When the space dudes on board are working during the day (I'm guessing they keep to Florida time), they turn the camera towards the inside of the ISS. But most of the time it seems to be pointed out a window at the Earth screaming past about 350 km below at ~28,000 km/h (about 4.5 mi./sec).

To me this ranks up there as one of the coolest things I've seen online.



Above: screen grab from a few minutes ago. ISS is scooting along below Australia (hi Pete!). When it goes over land you can easily pick out major features.

There are also sites that let you look up when the ISS will be (easily) visible in your location (usually just after dusk, or before dawn). I'm looking forward to showing my nieces & nephews the web sites, tracking the station as it moves over the west coast, into dusk and then going outside to spot it flying overhead.

[bgd73]

awesome.

I didn't know it got better than a boom pod window of a kc135

[dcb]

so I wonder what kind of mileage it gets?

[Daox]

lol at dcb (and Darin).

It honestly is very cool though. I've also watched it for a while.

[MetroMPG]

Mileage is probably really bad. Plus they have to keep boosting it to a higher orbit whenever the space shuttle visits.

I'll still watch their video feed though

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

Appropriate thread to notice your new sig today, Dave.

[MadisonMPG]

NASA is the master at P&G.

[Cd]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

the space dudes on board

What's up brah ...it's the Space Dudes

As a kid I would spend hours in the shivering cold staring through my grandfathers 8" Celestron refractor.

It is collecting dust now that Hubble has made it all seem like a waste of time.
Grandpa would have loved to have seen what we have access to now-a-days.

Kids have no idea how lucky that they are to have access to stuff like this.