You Can Use Google Street View To Check Out The International Space Station

If you have a couple of hours to kill and need something fun to do, give Google Street View a try. Even before virtual touring became a common solution to what to do over the weekend, this Google feature was a cool way to check out almost any part of the world from your computer.

Accessible through Google Maps, you just dropped a pin and look around via photographs – and who knew you didn’t have to limit yourself to the planet Earth in the process?

Image Credit: Google

The International Space Station (ISS) is also available for a detailed look-see through Google Street View.

The ISS is in orbit 250 miles from Earth and this 360 degree tour shows you how remarkable the lab, and the view, is in space.

Thomas Pesquet worked with Google and other astronauts in putting together what is now called Outer Space View.

Image Credit: Google

Pesquet blogged:

Because of the particular constraints of living and working in space, it wasn’t possible to collect Street View using Google’s usual methods.

Instead, the Street View team worked with NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama to design a gravity-free method of collecting the imagery using DSLR cameras and equipment already on the ISS.

Then I collected still photos in space, that were sent down to Earth where they were stitched together to create panoramic 360 degree imagery of the ISS.

Image Credit: iStock

There are also notes about the various features and instruments onboard, so you can learn a thing or two while you’re poking around.

Who doesn’t need a little more space these days? Take a few minutes and explore the last frontier!