National Air and Space Museum
Looking at Earth
May 8, 1986 – December 2, 2018
This gallery traces the development of technology for viewing Earth from balloons, aircraft, and spacecraft. The quest for ever-higher, ever-clearer images of the Earth is reflected in photographs and spacecraft images from a few feet to 7.5 million miles away. Some photographs are mural-size.
Highlights include:
- de Havilland DH-4: an American World War I aircraft used extensively for mapping and surveying in the 1920s
- Lockheed U-2C: key U.S. high-altitude reconnaissance jet developed in 1954-55 during the Cold War era, with flight suit and typical camera, dating from the 1950s to the present
- Earth observation satellites: prototypes of TIROS, the world's first weather satellite, built in 1960; ITOS weather satellite (engineering test model), 1970s; GOES geostationary satellite (full-scale model), 1975 to the present; and models of other satellites
- Landsat image of your state: interactive touchscreen display showing orbital views of the 50 states. Visitors to the gallery can also "punch in" an image of their hometown area as seen by a Landsat satellite
