1 00:00:01,289 --> 00:00:03,000 Photography is challenging. 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,351 You have to know the proper settings and tools for your camera. 3 00:00:06,895 --> 00:00:10,295 You need to zoom and focus and adjust to the lighting. 4 00:00:10,919 --> 00:00:14,038 Now imagine trying to shoot photos from space, 5 00:00:14,344 --> 00:00:20,887 in a micro-gravity environment, while looking out a window and flying faster than 17,000 miles an hour. 6 00:00:21,485 --> 00:00:24,452 Photography can be challenging in any environment. 7 00:00:24,970 --> 00:00:27,716 To be able to understand the optics, be able to understand aperture, 8 00:00:28,075 --> 00:00:32,477 and to be able to get the right combination of that to get the shot that you're after. 9 00:00:32,610 --> 00:00:37,333 It's particularly challenging in space because of the dynamics of it. 10 00:00:38,409 --> 00:00:43,878 In the 20 years that astronauts have lived on the International Space Station, they have shot millions of photographs. 11 00:00:44,529 --> 00:00:49,935 They record life inside the station. They take detailed views of equipment and experiments. 12 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:54,000 And they capture views of Earth nearly every day. 13 00:00:54,704 --> 00:00:58,822 Photography is not just a hobby for the ISS crew; it’s part of the job. 14 00:00:59,327 --> 00:01:02,230 And one they need to be trained to do. 15 00:01:02,615 --> 00:01:05,611 The challenges of shooting photos from space are many. 16 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:08,917 The Sun rises and sets every 90 minutes. 17 00:01:09,196 --> 00:01:12,604 Landmarks move from near to far in just seconds. 18 00:01:12,790 --> 00:01:17,385 We're orbiting the earth every 90 minutes going 17,500 miles an hour. 19 00:01:17,385 --> 00:01:24,583 If you are targeting a specific location on the Earth, you have to be in the window and ready for it when it passes underneath, 20 00:01:24,583 --> 00:01:26,531 it's not going to wait for you. 21 00:01:26,903 --> 00:01:32,198 The process of getting those shots starts years before an astronaut ever sets foot on the station. 22 00:01:32,783 --> 00:01:36,448 At Johnson Space Center, astronauts are trained to be photographers. 23 00:01:36,448 --> 00:01:42,000 Their tools are no different than what we use on Earth: handheld digital cameras and video equipment. 24 00:01:42,704 --> 00:01:48,931 In the classroom and in the field, they get basic photography lessons, skills classes, and lots of practice. 25 00:01:49,383 --> 00:01:54,757 Their teachers are professional photographers and videographers with a hundred years of experience between them. 26 00:01:55,195 --> 00:02:00,170 Even with all of that training, there is nothing quite like learning on the job. 27 00:02:00,994 --> 00:02:04,775 You get used to every window position and they all have different orientations. 28 00:02:04,775 --> 00:02:08,345 There are usually handrails or some other structure around the window 29 00:02:08,345 --> 00:02:13,308 and you get pretty good at just grabbing them with your toes and anchoring yourself that way. 30 00:02:13,808 --> 00:02:16,819 Their bodies are floating weightlessly, and so is the gear. 31 00:02:17,058 --> 00:02:20,202 The space station is orbiting. The Earth is turning. 32 00:02:20,534 --> 00:02:27,919 The Sun is reflecting off of Earth's water, the station's solar panels, and even the thick, multi-layer window panes. 33 00:02:28,052 --> 00:02:33,000 But once the astronauts get oriented, once they learn to steady themselves and the camera. 34 00:02:33,292 --> 00:02:39,467 Well, then their perch may be the greatest any human photographer has sat in. 35 00:02:39,626 --> 00:02:42,835 Everybody's favorite window was added in 2010. 36 00:02:42,835 --> 00:02:45,633 It's the cupola: I call it the window on the world. 37 00:02:45,633 --> 00:02:49,853 It's the only place on the space station where you can see the entire globe. 38 00:02:50,371 --> 00:02:56,944 We have photography equipment, cameras, and lenses staged throughout the station at the different window locations 39 00:02:56,944 --> 00:03:04,482 so that the equipment is readily available whenever we have a pass over something interesting and we have time to take some photography. 40 00:03:05,372 --> 00:03:12,776 If the only purpose of shooting photos was relaxation or documenting life and work on the space station, then the astronauts would be all set. 41 00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:16,716 But looking at Earth is actually an important scientific job. 42 00:03:17,460 --> 00:03:24,979 And so the women and men of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit train the astronauts in how to observe their terrestrial home. 43 00:03:25,245 --> 00:03:30,526 We're trying to get them into the mindset of being able to look at a landscape, recognize what's out there, 44 00:03:30,526 --> 00:03:34,400 and more importantly, recognize what's anomalous. 45 00:03:34,945 --> 00:03:39,816 In these classes, the Earth observation team teaches the astronauts key concepts 46 00:03:39,816 --> 00:03:47,821 in remote sensing, geology, ecology, mapping, climatology, and weather. 47 00:03:48,313 --> 00:03:50,581 They even go out for some field work. 48 00:03:50,581 --> 00:03:56,378 We give them focused training on the kind of sites that we're going to be asking them to photograph from the ISS. 49 00:03:56,378 --> 00:04:02,616 Because an astronaut who has some understanding of why they're being asked to take pictures of these volcanoes 50 00:04:02,616 --> 00:04:04,856 or why we want them to take this picture of these glaciers 51 00:04:04,856 --> 00:04:08,491 leads to one, they get more invested, they become more interested in why they're taking the images. 52 00:04:08,491 --> 00:04:13,811 But they also tend to take better imagery because they understand what it is we're actually looking for. 53 00:04:13,811 --> 00:04:21,330 Not all of us have a background that would give us an appreciation for the spectrum of different types of things that you can see on the Earth. 54 00:04:21,330 --> 00:04:26,227 Part of the training is what do the scientists interested in Earth observation look for? 55 00:04:26,227 --> 00:04:28,056 What are their interests? 56 00:04:28,056 --> 00:04:35,633 What kinds of phenomenon, what geological structures for example, what kind of changes are they trying to capture over time? 57 00:04:35,633 --> 00:04:44,340 Scientists, geographers, and students from around the world submit requests asking for views of Earth's features and landscapes. 58 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:49,784 Each day a few of those requests are passed to the space station crew. 59 00:04:50,382 --> 00:04:55,961 The Earth-observing team maps what the space station will be flying over on each orbit of each day, 60 00:04:55,961 --> 00:05:02,469 whether it will be daytime or nighttime, cloudy or clear. 61 00:05:03,173 --> 00:05:08,000 They work with other space station teams to see when photography might fit into the work schedule. 62 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:13,837 And they provide guidance to the astronauts on how to spot their targets on the ground. 63 00:05:14,036 --> 00:05:20,602 It's really difficult for us to provide an image that says: okay, this is exactly what it's going to look like out the window 64 00:05:20,602 --> 00:05:24,489 because you may be reversed. You may be oriented 90 degrees. 65 00:05:24,489 --> 00:05:28,628 But we also try to include images that are other astronaut photographs. 66 00:05:28,628 --> 00:05:33,074 So we try to give them that kind of situational awareness as much as we can. 67 00:05:33,419 --> 00:05:39,567 From their orbiting home on the space station, the astronauts have a view unlike anything most of us will ever see. 68 00:05:39,567 --> 00:05:45,247 It’s valuable because it is inspirational and because it is scientifically useful. 69 00:05:45,420 --> 00:05:53,500 So the astronauts and the ground team work together before, during, and after every mission to get the most out of every shot.