Posted by Despite the march of technological progress, it’s perhaps fair to say that space has never felt further away from the average person. Humans haven’t walked on the Moon since 1972, and the ongoing space race between Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic has only served to gatekeep the heavens to gods and the super-rich.
Even NASA has been left behind in the cosmic dust.
There is hope. While the price of a trip to the stratosphere costs $450,000 (with Virgin Galactic), the expense will inevitably fall over time. Tickets on the first commercial airline flight in 1914 cost $400 for 18.6 miles over 23 minutes. Today, flights are measured in cents per mile and costs fell 50% between 1980 and 2013.
Artemis
Making space a slightly more realistic destination is NASA’s commitment to returning to the Moon by 2025, with the crewed Artemis II mission penciled in for a trip around our lonely satellite. A year later, Artemis III will land in the lunar south pole, along with the first humans in half a century.
It’s an undeniably bold set of plans that seem to have been laid in response to billionaire joyrides in the atmosphere.
While space is still out of reach for the majority for now, technology hasn’t completely forsaken our dreams. By tuning into a webcam, earthlings can experience views of our planet turning, the auroras, and live pictures from observatories all over the world, all without moving from our chairs.
It’s a tangential part of humanity’s determination to bring otherwise inaccessible experiences into the home.
Virtual reality devices and Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse concept offer something similar, while webcams that stream gaming experiences aim to unite the offline world with the online one. Online casino sites have live baccarat games that reintroduce human dealers, increasing the authenticity of the casino experience.
This type of virtual “tourism” has a role in opening up the world – and beyond – to everybody currently living here.
International Space Station
The most important space webcam is attached to the International Space Station (ISS). Providing four different views of our planet and the ISS itself, the official High Definition Earth-Viewing System website features a tracker with positional data so you’ll always know where you are during the ISS’ sixteen orbits per day (90ish minutes each).
A reverse but equally spacey view is achievable via the European Southern Observatory (ESO) website. As hinted at earlier, the ESO’s cameras point at several observatories, showing them in action against the backdrop of the sky. These include the La Silla Observatory and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope, both in Chile.
Finally, visiting the homepage of SpaceWeatherLive returns several webcams near the “auroral oval”, i.e. the part of the earth that witnesses the auroras, in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Here, you can virtually visit Alaska, Canada, the UK, the US, and several Scandinavian countries, including Greenland. Alternatively, head south to Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica for a picture of the aurora australis.
It’ll do for now.
