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one part of the overall mission of the

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international space station is to serve

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as a platform from which to study the

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earth and what advantage the complex has

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over automated instruments and other

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satellites is the presence of human crew

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members armed with cameras and curiosity

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recently my colleague amiko couterer

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talked with dr lisa vanderblumen the

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manager of the earth science and remote

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sensing unit here at the johnson space

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center about the crew earth observation

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experiment and asked her to explain why

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well because you have human interval in

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involvement during the whole process and

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that means that we can

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get dynamic shots from

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the iss and it allows for

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immediate types of responses sometimes

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we have a lot of dynamic events we also

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have idc events which are international

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disaster charter events and they happen

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in an instant basically and so having

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astronauts that can immediately take

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these pictures for us

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prevents us from having to actually task

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satellites

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which is a time consuming

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matter so that's one of the main reasons

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also

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the public loves the human involvement

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in these pictures so

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getting the public involved and seeing

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these pictures really helps our program

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and helps the um the whole iss program

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let's talk about crew at the

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observations can you describe for me

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what the goals are and also how does it

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work

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sure

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crew earth observations also commonly

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known as ceo has been around since the

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beginning of the shuttle days and the

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reason that it was developed or came

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about basically is to help the

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astronauts capture the photos while

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they're in space

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and so we have a group here now of earth

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scientists and educators uh very

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knowledgeable that actually

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we get we receive a lot of different

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requests from different parties

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educators scientists even the crew

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themselves have certain sites that

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they'd like to see

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so we get those list of of targets we

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use a very complicated software package

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to actually determine

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what targets are

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are viable if you will for the next day

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and that's based on the position of the

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iss based on uh weather conditions and

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so forth and so we generate a list we

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then send that up to the to the crew on

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the iss for them to try to obtain these

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these photos and it's our help that we

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also give them guidance on how to take

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the photos and so forth

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great can you give me some examples of

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pictures that serve the goal of

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documenting the impact

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of humans on their planet sure i think

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the next shot that you'll see

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right here this is a

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most part people probably remember this

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pretty well this is the bp oil spill

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back in 2010 april of 2010 and right

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there you'll see the oil slick in the

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gulf of mexico a very very uh

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disastrous event if people remember

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those years ago and what you're seeing

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here again is the oil slick on the

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surface and uh during this event the oil

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leaked out from the rig

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and here's a follow-on here

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and this image if you look to the left

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there you'll see actually the

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mississippi delta there and again you're

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seeing the huge expanse of this oil

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slick there were approximately

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68 000 if you will square miles of ocean

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that were covered by the oil or affected

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by the oil it's not only the surface but

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also the deeper depths depth and

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again another view here and there at the

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top of this image you'll see the the

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mississippi delta as well the delta the

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mississippi strong flows also impacted

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the spread of this oil spill very

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disastrous on all the of the different

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life in this environment even today

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in april and this month basically 2016 a

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study was recently done where 88 percent

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of 360 of

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um

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small dolphins actually had

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underdeveloped lungs

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and they attributed that to the oil this

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next image is actually chicago at night

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and this was a study

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is part of a study that the researchers

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are actually looking at light pollution

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levels and they want to take that

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information across the city this city in

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particular and actually take it back to

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the laboratory and test those light

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levels on mice in a laboratory setting

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to see what the biological effects are

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what about monitoring natural disasters

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that's a big part of what we do in our

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group and the next photo that you'll see

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this is actually uh flooding in the uh

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amur river in russia and to the left

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there on the bank of you see the

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sediment the reddish sediment flow it's

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very intense very large sediment plume

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due to the flooding and the on to the

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left of the the bank of that river is

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the city uh troyskoy

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which is

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obviously going to be impacted by the

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flooding as well as the agricultural

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fields to the left as well so a very uh

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disaster

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uh disastrous area at that time and this

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was back in 2013.

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and the next image you'll see there this

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is a in new south wales

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australia excuse me and this is october

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of 2013 and what you see there are

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intense wildfires there were about 100

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wildfires at that time and that was due

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to very high temperatures and very windy

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conditions and you can see this this

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astronaut photo shows the extent quite

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well here's the same area at night time

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you can see the fires lit up quite well

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so again very very good image of the

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type of disastrous event that was

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occurring at this time

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and here's another image this is uh one

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of the things that our astronauts like

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to take are images of tropical cyclones

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and hurricanes this is hurricane olaf

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back in october of 2015

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and

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the reason this we picked this one

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basically to show is that this was part

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of a

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project that we're working with tropical

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cyclone project where they're trying to

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actually learn more about the eye and

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the actual eye wall they're taking

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measurements of these types of photos

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that are taken on a regular basis by the

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crew

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to actually determine the altitude of

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the clouds in the eye wall and that will

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help with learning more and getting a

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better idea of the intensity of storms

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and actually the paths that storms will

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take

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and here's one other flooding example

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and this was the

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shire river in mozambique and this was

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in january of last year 2015

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and once again if you see the the city

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to the top of this image and that's

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sanjay and again very

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likely to be impacted by the flooding

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here there's also an airport if you look

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to the very top as well that could also

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be impacted by this flooding

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so i understand we can take these

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photographs and then also uh stitch them

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together into video can you tell me

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about that yes we can that's that's a

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project that we really enjoy doing our

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staff really enjoys that so the next

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video that you're going to see is

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actually a video up at night going

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across africa from the northwest uh

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portion of the continent down to the

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southeast and here you see and also in

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the background there which is beautiful

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is the milky way that shows in the

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background there we're going across now

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the

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and continuing on more smaller cities

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throughout the continent and here we

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have harare zimbabwe and pretoria south

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africa

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now at the very end of this video

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does the taking pictures of earth become

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valuable to the astronauts themselves oh

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definitely one of our jobs that we

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really enjoy or the parts of our jobs

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that we really enjoy is our ability to

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actually interview and talk with the

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astronauts both before they go up uh

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into space and also when they return

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during debriefs and a constant theme

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that we hear from them is how much they

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enjoy taking pictures they enjoy taking

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the time to pick up a camera go to the

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window and take pictures for us um and

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it's a it's a real challenge sometimes

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for them and we help them through it but

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i think it's really very relaxing and

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therapeutic for them i would imagine in

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some ways a way of connecting back to

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earth when you're so isolated in a way

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exactly exactly and another

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fact that we hear from a lot of

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astronauts is that they have a hard time

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expressing what they see up there to the

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rest of the world so by capturing their

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views and pictures and these in these

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gorgeous images it does justice to

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actually letting the rest of the public

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know what they what they have been

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witnessing absolutely and and mentioning

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letting the rest of the public you know

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being able to see those uh those images

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that the astronauts do take these images

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are posted online that anyone can access

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anywhere can you tell me about well

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first of all i guess can you tell me

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where these are located sure

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we have a website it's called the

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gateway to astronaut photography of

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earth and it's called the gape g-a-p-e

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and we recently about a year and a half

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ago did a major overhaul of the website

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made it more modern and uh very good

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search utilities and so forth and right

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now uh we if you look at the average

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number of hits on that website for the

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last three months of this year it's

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about 40 40 million hits per month and

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that's huge

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and we're we've been told that we were

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one of the most popular sites

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within nasa

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so we get a huge number of individuals

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groups and so forth coming to the site

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searching our photos requesting photos

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and so forth

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that's uh

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really great news to know that we have

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that uh capability to be able to access

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these photographs a lot of people are

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already accessing it but if they are not

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go to that website again is cape gateway

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to astronaut photography of earth if you

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type that into google you will find it

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great thanks so much for

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coming here and talking with us today