I’m Eric Pearson, a software developer and entrepreneur since the ’80s.  Even somebody like me, with decades of database experience, couldn’t get worthwhile results from NASA’s online search.  But I had seen some astonishing photos and I knew there had to be more.

So, starting in 2011, I began downloading millions of astronaut photos and their metadata, to build my own modern, searchable database. Since 2013 I’ve been keeping up with the flow of new photos, and I’ve been using the database to compile a collection of my favorite photographs featuring the Great Lakes region. You’ll be able to browse the Great Lakes, Grand Lands gallery shortly.  Not long ago I widened my search. When you visit the gallery, check out Elsewhere in North America and The Rest of the Planet for the most recent additions. If I live long enough I’ll add photos of Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, Hawaii, the Galapagos Islands…

From orbit — roughly one million feet up — the horizon is 1,500 away miles in all directions, so there are many oblique photos of Alaska, Scandinavia, Patagonia, and the rest.  Only the polar regions are always beyond the horizon.