When astronauts look outside their window in space during a normal
orbit, do they see the Earth from a north-south perspective (North
Pole at top)? In other words, are they "right side up" in relationship
to our normal view of Earth geography? If this is true, why is it
true? Since space is a vacuum and with no gravity, should it matter
whether they see the North Pole or South Pole "on top"? Or are they
oriented towards a North Pole view simply because of convention? (That
is, our Northern Hemispheric bias!)

Thanks,

Stephen

Hello Braitman,

No, when the astronauts look outside their window in space, their
orientation (and thus their view) in general has no relationship to
the north-south perspective of earth. As an example, see
  http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=1519
which shows parts of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, the Finger Lakes, the
St. Lawrence and Niagara Rivers. The perspective in this image is not
north/south (from the glare, it appears to be taken from east to
west).

The Visible Earth site at
  http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/
has a number of images, most have been rectified to be oriented with
north at the top, but not in all cases. A quick search of
"orientation" or "perspective" on that site
  http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/search.php?q=orientation
  http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/search.php?q=perspective
yields a number of images that are not necessarily with north at the top.

As another example, you may want to view the images at
  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/moon/gallery/g_01.html
which is a gallery of nine images from Apollo 8. You can see the
shadow (sunrise / sunset) quite clearly on many of these. The shadow
goes roughly from "north" to "south" and from the images, the shadow
crosses almost horizontally in the first image and varies (if visible)
in each successive image. So the astronauts in taking these pictures
did not get "right side up" as you put it when taking all these
pictures.

For more information, you may want to search with phrases such as
  earth image
  earth image perspective
  images earth site:nasa.gov
  earthrise over moon
and similar phrases.

  --Maniac

---

Clarification of Answer by maniac-ga on 24 Oct 2006 18:05 PDT

Hello Braitman,

With respect to the orientation of the space shuttle, this may be
dependent on payload considerations.
  http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/rocket_sci/shuttle/attitude/attitude.html
describes the payload pointing at the sun for solar observation or
with attitued "nose up" to minimize disturbances to micro gravity
payloads
  http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-99/sts-99-day-01-highlights.html
describes the payload pointing at the earth for mapping purposes and
flying "tail first"

Others have commented about the space station orientation. Yes - it
tends to fly in an orientation where the solar panels have a good view
of the sun (w/o shadows from the station) in a manner that attempts to
minimize the use of propellant or attitude control from the control
moment gyroscopes.

Thanks for the kind words.
  --Maniac

Thanks very much. You further clarified a social psychology for me in
noting that most images from space that we see have "been rectified to
be oriented with
north at the top." This leads me to assume that astronauts see Earth
geography in any number of orientations, and may be sometimes confused
at what they are seeing since their view is not the "normal"
North-South position of terrestial geography. The only question that
remains is whether there is a "normal" astronaut orbiting position
(Space Shuttle, Space Station, etc.) that follows a longitudinal path
(rather than latitudinal) and places their cockpit orientation towards
the North Pole rather than the South Pole. This may sound vaguely
ludicrous, but I'm actually interested in knowing if this kind of
orbital orientation is at all considered in space flight for (perhaps)
psychological coherence and/or other communications logic, etc.
Thanks!

In addition, satellites orbit the earth on various paths and are not
oriented relative to the earth.  The space stations with solar power
are oriented to the sun at all times, regardless of their orbit. 
"Rightside up" has no meaning in the astronauts' environment.
Regardless of how the astronaut was seeing the earth when s/he takes a
photo, it is most likely that it will be reproduced in the N-S
orientation that conforms with the way maps are printed to be easily
recognizable.

Myo ...

The piccies could be made into a book!

Why is it that all the good ideas come from me?

You really must try harder.

Bryo

Some kinda of out of space book? ;-) 

But that reminded me that until Google Earth updated its photos, the
one of my little town was obviously taken from the north looking
south, which looked funny when zoomed in from the south, a bit of the
north sides of the buildings visible.

That has nothing to do with the question, however.

they just spehere with 2 pole. can figure out which south n north by
land figure. all of us know the earth by looking at mape so north or
south easyly to figure out. we use pole only when we on land. on space
we use sun direction. so there will be no matter if it up or down. no
one know what space look like they just know what they can see. n what
more complicated is where is begining and ending coz everything have
its borders.

"Since space is a vacuum and with no gravity"

Being in a vacuum has no relation to being affected by gravity; e.g.,
the moon has no atmosphere but still exerts gravitational force (on
moondust, moon landers, moon walkers, and even terrestrial tides). 
And neither has any bearing on your question, which is strictly about
orientation.  A jet pilot who inverts his plane will see the earth
upside down.  Turn a map upside down, or stand on your head, and it
will appear with the North pole on the bottom.  All of this should be
obvious -- I would question what your mental process was when you
posed the question.  Orbit a teacup around a basketball with "N"
printed at one end; would a little man in the teacup see the "N" at
the top?  It of course depends upon the orientation of the teacup
relative to the basketball, and has nothing to do with vacuums or
gravity.

"You further clarified a social psychology for me in
noting that most images from space that we see have "been rectified to
be oriented with
north at the top." 

Not just images from space, but all maps; there's nothing inherently
"upward" about North, and reorienting photos is no different from
reorienting maps.