Orbital View Quotes

You think America is the biggest place on Earth, but it's not. [The view from Mir] put everything in perspective.

The view of earth is spectacular from space. Most people imagine that when astronauts look out the window of the shuttle they see the whole earth like that big blue marble that was made famous by the flights that went to the moon. But the shuttle is much, much closer than those astronauts were. So we don't see the whole planet, the whole ball at once, we just see parts of it.

Looking down at the Earth, you started to pick up a sense of speed much more than I had noticed on orbit.

There is a sunrise or a sunset from space every 92 minutes so there is an incredible amount of beauty to see from up there.

I was able to look out the window to see this incredible sight of the whole circle of the Earth. Oceans were crystal blue, the land was brown, and the clouds and the snow were pure white. And that jewel of Earth was just hung up in the blackness of space.

See what the world looks like from orbit. Well, in that way, at least, there was profit to be had. Nobody could look down at the planet, green and blue, with no borders in evidence and no sign of human habitation, and not get his perspective forever altered.

The Earth - from our altitude at Hubble, we're 350 miles up. We can see the curvature. We can see the roundness of our home, our home planet. And it's the most magnificent thing I've ever seen. It's like looking into Heaven. It's paradise.

I'd love to go to space. I would love to peek out a giant window and look back at the blue marble. There's no question; I'd love to do that.

It changes your perspective to be able to look out the window and see the planet. One of the thoughts that I had when I first got up here was, 'We really do live on a planet, and we are in a solar system, and we are flying through space right now.' I mean, this is something that you know, obviously, but to see the planet - it's amazing.

The most breathtaking thing about being in space is actually looking back at the Earth.

When you look out the window of a spaceship, you see entire countries, vast swaths of continents. One turn of the head covers what once took thousands of years to traverse at ground level.