x0x Turkey from space

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x0x Turkey from space

By Prof. Dr. USTUN AYDINGOZ

Its location on the Earth's surface and a varied geography render
Turkey
one of the most photogenic countries when viewed from orbit around our
planet.

O ne of my fondest childhood dreams was to meet moonwalking astronauts.
In
fact, I would have preferred going myself to the Moon, but I soon
realized
that this was not possible in the foreseeable future. Therefore, it was

significant enough for me to meet a handful of people who had been
there.
Of all the people who had ever lived, only twenty-four men had been to
the
vicinity of the Moon; half of those had made it to the lunar surface.
Those twelve, who were my contemporaries, were the first humans ever to

look at their home planet from the surface of another celestial body.
During the last fifteen years, I have had the privilege to meet in
person
some of those astronauts. Unbeknownst to me earlier, however, this
would
soon lead me to a revelation about my own country.

A WORK OF ART

Early in the 1990s, I was interviewing John Young at Johnson Space
Center
in Houston, Texas. Then in his early sixties, Young was still a NASA
(National Aeronautics and Space Administration) astronaut. He was the
most
frequent traveler to space by then. Of his six space missions, two were
to
the Moon, during one of which he had actually landed on the Moon as the

commander of Apollo 16. Two of his earlier flights were during Project
Gemini, precursor of the Apollo lunar missions. His final two flights
were
on the space shuttle. This experienced astronaut was the commander of
the
first space shuttle mission in April 1981. At one point during the
interview, I asked Young a casual question about any special
observations
he might have had of Turkey from orbit, and his response astonished me.

Young was not an astronaut to review the basics of Turkey's geography
the
night before he would sit for an interview with a Turkish journalist.
Still, the level of detail about Turkey in his answer was intriguing to

me: "We have some great photographs of Turkey. There are some very rich

mineral resources in Turkey.

I think you are the world's leading exporter of chromium, which is a
very
important metal in our business, aerospace... The mountain ranges are
just
beautiful all over Turkey. There are a lot of very interesting places
in
Turkey that would be worth looking at... The archeological sites, the
straits, the sea currents off the Aegean coast, Cyprus... That would be

worth putting in a book some time..." At this point in the interview,
John
Young called NASA's Public Affairs Office for a photograph, which was
duly
brought to my attention at the end of our talk. This photograph from a
space shuttle flight featured the Gulf of Antalya on the southern
(Mediterranean) coast of Turkey and the nearby Lakes Region inland. I
was
so fascinated and overwhelmed by the photograph that I decided right
then
and there to search for whatever images of Turkey had been obtained
from
the space shuttle. During the course of subsequent years, I searched
astronaut photography of Earth (a database of several hundred thousand
images) for views of Turkey and its environs. From among thousands of
images, whenever I ran into an image showing Turkey my heart beat
faster
and occasionally my eyes filled with tears...

Some of those photographs had such a poetic beauty that they were like
the
art work of a consummate painter.

THE HUMAN FACTOR

To me, one of the factors rendering the images in these pages so
significant is that they were taken not by unmanned satellites but by
humans like you and me. The photographs you see here were taken
personally
by astronauts either on board one of the United States space shuttles
(Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour) or in a space

station (the International Space Station or the now-defunct Russian Mir

space station). In other words, you yourself would have seen these very

sights should you have had the possibility of ascending several hundred

kilometers above Earth. Hence the human factor in these
images--although
no human is visible on the surface of Earth.

Many of the photographs taken by astronauts have been put into these
pages
just as they were taken.

That is, they have not been rotated to conform to the concept of atlas
maps (i. e., north should be at the top and east should be to the
right).
Actually, astronaut photography of Earth's surface is quite a
spontaneous
undertaking in that the images usually have no concern with fitting
into
the directional patterns dictated by humans! Besides, the view is
oblique
(i. e., not vertical) in many images.

However, many unmanned observation satellites take photographs of
whatever
there is directly below them. In addition, the colors of the images in
these pages are real to the extent the preservation media (film or
digital
media) permit. This may not, however, be the case with satellite
imagery
where the images are sometimes "enhanced"--and false colors used--for
remote sensing in order to obtain detailed data in research fields like

mining, geology, oceanography.

TURKEY: A PHOTOGENIC COUNTRY

While searching for astronaut photography of Turkey from orbit, I
browsed
through images of many fascinating parts of our home planet.

Soon, however, I came to realize that Turkey is one of the most
photogenic
countries on the Earth's surface. The combination of so many distinct
geographic features within a single country is a rare occurrence. No
other
country has a sea completely surrounded by land, for instance. Nor is
there another one with two major straits. On the one hand, Africa and
the
Sahara are closer to Turkey than many think them to be; on the other,
the
Caucasus Mountains and the Russian steppes beyond are not too far away.

Historically two very important rivers carve beautiful valleys in
eastern-southeastern Turkey whilst the lacelike contours of the Aegean
coastline offer a visual feast for the space voyager. Great Mount Agri
displays its majesty even from a height of hundreds of kilometers, and
all
the while the island of Cyprus, with its interesting shape, is but one
step away from Turkey.

Your gaze is fixed on the different colors of the lakes, which are all
printed indiscriminately pale blue on atlas maps, in the Lakes Region
in
Western Anatolia. You become absorbed in the plankton blooms in the
Black
Sea off the coast of Samsun...

You see contrails from airplanes passing over Turkey and discern some
of
the Turkish cities, the two bridges spanning the Bosporus, many
highways,
and most major airports and harbors. But you cannot see any humans...
Or
so you think at first. You soon come to realize that we, the people of
Turkey and her neighbors, are all there...

Ustun Aydingoz is the author and designer of the book, Turkey from
Space
as Viewed by Astronauts, which was recently published by Is Bank
Culture
Press in two separate volumes in Turkish and English.