Photographing Earth from Outer Space

In his Oral History interview, John Glenn talk’s about NASA’s initial trepidation over an astronaut carrying a camera into the shuttle with him. It was their fear that a camera would pose too much of a distraction from the mandatory procedures and responsibilities of conducting a successful flight. Just weeks before the flight was to take place, however, Glenn was able to convince the Program Director of the benefits to having photographic record from this first orbital flight.

Click here to read the excerpt from his Oral History interview.

Thanks to Glenn’s persistence, below are photographs from his historic trip. Slides 7-9 offer a sequence of images capturing the sunset during Glenn’s third orbit and distinctly illustrate the thin layer of Earth’s atmosphere against the black backdrop of outer space.

Shortly after the launch of his Friendship 7 spacecraft, as he passed above the Canary Islands, John Glenn captured this image of cloud cover over the North Atlantic Ocean.

Image 2 of 9