Earth, Spirit of Place

Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) have many tasks, but a consistent favorite is taking photographs of Earth. The ISS astronauts don’t just take digital images randomly. The photos they shoot are part of a well-defined program of data collection coordinated through the Crew Earth Observations team at Johnson Space Center. Current research targets include glaciers, deltas, urban areas, coral reefs, megafans (inland deltas), and long-term ecological monitoring sites. Dynamic events such as hurricanes, dust storms, volcanic eruptions, and fires are also imaged when possible. Astronauts also document the growth and change of human-made features, such as cities. The database of astronaut photography is freely accessible via the Internet and has made this book possible.    

Like millions of you, I have taken great delight in following Chris Hadfield since his Soyuz launch in 2012. And it is now a privilege to produce this book celebrating a selection of many of Chris’ beautiful and evocative photographs taken during his five months on the International Space Station (ISS). For his more than 1,000,000 Twitter followers, you will also find his artful tweets enlivening captions of his images. Complementing his photos are a number of NASA satellite shots captured by various orbital platforms over the last few years. Many of the pages include moving quotations by many of the astronauts that have flown in space before Chris, going way back to those first two; Alan Shepard and Uri Gagarin in 1961.       

Little, Brown & Co. is putting a lot of money into promoting Chris' new book AN ASTRONAUT'S GUIDE TO LIFE ON EARTH (9780316253017) with full page adds in major newspapers and a six week book tour through North America and Europe that ends December 5, 2013.

John McQuarrie John McQuarrie is an Ottawa-based author and photographer whose major clients have included Coors, Marlboro, McDonnell-Douglas and Lockheed. But his real passion is producing coffee table books. His earlier works focused on the Canadian Air Force from the Second World War to the Gulf War and the Canadian Armed Forces in their role as Peacekeepers. John then turned his camera onto the cattle business and working cowboys. And he is quick to point out that his unfulfilled childhood dream of becoming either a cowboy or a fighter pilot has, in later life, finally been realized vicariously through the lens of his camera.