Roy Thomson Hall presents

View From Above

Sometimes, a little distance is all you need to see things in a brand new way. For astronaut Terry Virts, his newfound perspective was from the International Space Station (ISS), where he installed the Cupola module, granting an unprecedented 360- degree view from the station. When he later became the commander of the ISS, he made good use of the Cupola, taking more photographs than any astronaut who came before him. Many of those images were later used in the National Geographic book View From Above and IMAX film A Beautiful Planet, but to hear Virts tell it, no photo can capture the perfect shade of blue from a sunrise viewed from outer space.

As a NASA astronaut, pilot of the space shuttle Endeavour and crew member on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, Virts spent 200 consecutive days in space as commander of the International Space Station—one of the longest continuous space mission of any NASA astronaut.

Photo Credit: Terry Virts