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VANTAGE POINTS


Te tranquil azure of Earth’s Ozone is a unique blue hue that can only be seen from low Earth orbit, and one which Space Shuttle Atlantis astronauts were eager to share.


Whether we climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, zip through a tree canopy, or just take an elevator to a spinning glass-walled restaurant atop a hotel, we’re thrilled by any vantage point that lets us see far and wide. “Te analogy of scraping the sky, and so getting closer to heaven, resists dismissal,” Mark Kingwell writes of the Empire State Building.


Why do we love high places?


Because we are earthbound, and we move through our lives horizontally. Going vertical means transcending our limits - witness the spires of gothic cathedrals and ambitious secular skyscrapers. We risk our lives to climb mountains that have endured for millennia and hold secrets we cannot fathom.


The reverence for high places cuts across cultures.


Sherpas, an ethnic group of Buddhists, traveled to Everest from Tibet 500 years ago; they believe Mount Everest is the home of an enlightened deity. Moses climbed Mt. Sinai to receive enlightenment. Te Maori believe mountains were once gods and warriors of great strength. Many Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest believe powerful spirits live on top of mountains. James Hilton even situated his utopia, Shangri-La, high in the Himalayas. A climb spells safety - we are removing ourselves from the fray, getting safely above it all, gaining a new perspective. Yet ascending into the sky also means moving away from the constraints of


“Some of the imagery takes you from day to night in orbit, which happened every 90 minutes for them. Tere’ll be this glorious sunset, and afterward the lights start popping up on Earth, and you realize the speed at which the shuttle orbited. Tere are rare views of the ozone layer, the horizon, oceans, and ice caps,” Nickrent exclaims. “Stunning time-lapse images of the Aurora Borealis taken from the space station. Beyond their beauty, it’s good scientific information. You sense that ability to observe things in a way we’ve never been able to photograph or even imagine; then parse out, tease out, the science behind them. We can compare changes over time. It’s a global view like we’ve never had before.”


our bodies, breaking free from gravity. Striving for something higher.


When you visit the Kennedy Space Center, your first glimpse of the NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis happens with a flourish, as the screen of a multimedia show opens to reveal the shuttle itself. Its backdrop? An LED screen that shows image after image of the shuttle’s view from space.


“We created a sunrise, and you can see the light change across the shuttle,” says Doug Nickrent, PGAV Senior Exhibit Designer.


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