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so we're taking a closer look at planet

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earth this month on how the

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international space station plays such

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an important role as a platform for

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studying it and joining me today to talk

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a little bit more about that dr lisa

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vanderblumen who's the manager of our

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earth science and remote sensing office

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here at jsc who actually gets to work

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with the astronauts on pretty much a

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daily basis and their role in actually

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monitoring the earth from above so first

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off just tell me why is it valuable why

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is it important to use the station as a

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platform you know to take a closer look

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at our planet

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well dan everyone should realize that

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the earth is very dynamic yes and it's

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constantly changing

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and so

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from the viewpoint on earth it's very

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hard to see large-scale

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changes and so forth so if we step away

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and we can look at the earth from above

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we can get a very good feel for all of

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the dynamic changes that are happening

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both in the ocean in the atmosphere on

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land and so forth and and climate change

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as we all know is a big thing these days

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and so

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it gives us a good opportunity to look

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at things like aerosols

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pollution

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changes in the the atmosphere changes in

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the the uh

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ocean winds and so forth so lots of uh

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good opportunities we can even look at

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changes in forest canopy and so forth so

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so there's a lot you can see when you're

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you know traveling 260 some miles above

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17 000 miles they're covering a lot of

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ground

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how do you guys actually you know pick

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and choose some of the stuff that they

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are you know assigned to look at to

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investigate well recently within the

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last year or so we developed a system on

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our website where we actually have a

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forum that scientists and educators can

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actually apply

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for uh sites for targets and so we we

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read those we review those and we either

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approve or disapprove usually approved

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and so

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lots of good studies out there for both

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scientists educators and teachers and

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students are also involved in asking for

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sites

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we also

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one of our major charters is involved

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we're involved with the idc the

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international disaster charter

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so anytime any uh

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major event occurs disaster occurs we

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make that a priority target for the

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astronauts to take things like forest

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fires hurricanes flooding flooding uh

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any of those types of things and lots of

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times it's in third world countries as

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well where it's very helpful for if we

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can get some imagery back to those folks

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it helps in the recovery and that type

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of thing okay and you actually so you

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brought a couple of samples some of the

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stuff i mean anytime we see views of

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earth from above it's always stunning so

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just you know walk us through a couple

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of these shows what we're looking at

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sure this one is uh just an example of

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what the type of detail that we can see

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and this is geological obviously it's an

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uh it's the colorado river in the grand

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canyon and you can see the 3d view there

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and you can actually see if you look

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close enough the uh the waterfall the

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water flowing through the river yep

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this is one of our favorites uh this is

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uh aurora borealis the northern lights

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and what you're seeing here is western

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canada

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and british columbia and so forth those

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are the lights that you see there and

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some of the lights there also

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are due to a lot of the oil drilling and

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the fracking that's going on in that

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region yep and you can actually see that

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from space so beautiful uh here's an

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example of an actual volcano um the uh

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in papua new guinea

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it's one of the most active volcanoes

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there and we actually caught it as it

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was erupting very active area there

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tectonically

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here's a good study that we've

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actually looked at using multiple

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imagery you can see there in 2002 versus

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2013 2013

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that you see the uppsala glacier down in

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the patagonia in south america you can

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see that we've actually it's melted

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quite a bit just in the 10 to 11 years

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there the edge of it in 2002 was to the

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left there to the right is where it's

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actually melted uh due to warming in

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2013 so we can actually see that with

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imagery here's a recent very recent

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example of some of the volcanoes that we

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see down in peru and bolivia

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and you can see just the detail that you

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see there is just amazing

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here this is very interesting i really

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like this image um this is the koreas

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and you can see that to the right there

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is um

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south korea i'm sorry north korea and to

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the left there

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where you see no lights whatsoever is

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actually north korea which is indicative

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of the political situation there and you

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have china to the top there and here's

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another nighttime vision vision

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of

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cairo egypt and you can see the nile

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extending to

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south of cairo cairo there excuse me uh

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and you can see that the lights

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obviously indicate where folks are

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civilized uh living and so forth and

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also to the north of cairo is the actual

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um

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river basin if you will

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the delta uh from the nile

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also able to you know track a lot of

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geological and ma and man-made things

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correct from the station i think we also

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have a video real quick oh yeah um if

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you could walk us through that as well

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sure we uh one of our fun activities we

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have quite a lot of fun activities is to

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actually put together a lot of these

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images here you can see we're moving

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from mexico

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you saw houston there san antonio

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and

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we keep moving towards the east uh

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east sort of northward here and you'll

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see some more imagery coming some more

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cities coming up birmingham atlanta

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nashville memphis st louis

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to the left there in the image

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and we're continuing to move towards the

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east here and again these are made from

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uh single images and you see

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indianapolis charlotte uh there

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charlotte north carolina and now we're

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moving up along the eastern seaboard if

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you will of the united states and you

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can see washington dc with all the

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lights in philadelphia new york city

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to the to the west is toronto and

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detroit there you'll see also some of

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the lakes there the darker features

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and then we continue to move up north

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along the east coast you see boston

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canada to the left there to the west

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montreal and ottawa and again very very

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clear in these images uh or these photos

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uh where civilization is residing

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and i mean they're they're stunning just

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to look at it i mean those those

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pictures it's almost like looking at

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stars and galaxies and a picture from

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hubble but it's really just the cities

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right below these ashes it's fascinating

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so

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the station obviously people on it what

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what are some of the advantages of

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having people in the loop instead of

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just you know remote satellites up in

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orbit well it's interesting my

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background is remote sensing using

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satellites and so i've come here and saw

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have been able to see the advantages of

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having handheld photography

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as i mentioned earlier one of our

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major emphasis is on international

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disaster charters and these are events

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that are dynamic and occur

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overnight and so

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if we have a human there that can we

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quickly turn around and get those images

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taken

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that's very very important and we don't

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have to task a satellite to actually

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take some images uh it's quicker

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people and also the the public just

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loves the human interaction knowing that

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a person took this picture

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and so that's just a real plus there and

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i heard you got a call from space once

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too that must have been really yes i did

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one of the astronauts uh

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gerst actually gave us a call to just

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chat and have some questions for us and

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i got the rest of the

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members of the group into the office

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just because that's that doesn't happen

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very often but uh we we do get a chance

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to deal with the astronauts i had

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sam christopher eddie come into my

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office as well and chat about things so

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it's it's a lot of fun to get to talk to

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these humans um

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in this in this regard great all right

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well again dr lisa van der blumen uh

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manager of our uh earth sensing

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and from earth science and remote

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sensing at jsc i'm sorry too many titles

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um but again thank you so much for

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joining me we're gonna be looking at the

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earth all month long uh and how the

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station is a part of monitoring it

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thanks so much for joining here and