Space Shuttle Earth observations digital data base

The Space Shuttle Earth Observations Project (SSEOP) collects photographs of the Earth taken by Space Shuttle astronauts and maintains a public digital data base describing each Earth-looking photograph taken in the U.S. piloted space program. The number of photographs cataloged in the SSEOP data base is over 200,000 and is projected to increase by more than 30,000 per year. The data base allows Internet access by educators, the scientific community, and the general public to critical information about the photographs. The data base provides two primary functions: (1) allowing geographic searches, (2) allowing a selected set of the best photographs to be down loaded. Because the coverage is global with highest concentrations in the fast-changing tropics, and the length of record is more than 30 years, this data set is well suited to understanding global environmental change