The University of Arizona Logo

Space, Seen Through a Window

Time to read
less than
1 minute
Read so far

Space, Seen Through a Window

Dec. 7, 2016
Posted in:
Astronaut and UA Engineering alumnus Don Pettit (PhD/ChE 1983) has taken thousands of mesmerizing images during his three missions to the International Space Station, many of which are now published in a new book, Spaceborne.

Astronauts have countless official tasks to accomplish once they’re up and out of Earth’s atmosphere. But space walkers need hobbies, too.

If you’re gone for six months, you can’t spend all your time nose-to-the-grindstone working,” says Don Pettit, a NASA astronaut who has lived on the International Space Station for 370 days over the course of three missions. “You need to have some means of relaxing, and I like to refer to it as ‘orbital scrimshaw’” -- in other words, a space-based hobby.

Pettit himself partook in a longtime passion: photography. Since his first mission aboard the ISS as part of Expedition 6 in 2002, he’s taken hundreds of thousands of images, focusing his skilled eye through small windows on views of Earth, and beyond.