On September 11, 2001, NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson was in a position no other human shared: he was the only American not on planet Earth. Serving as the Commander of Expedition 3 aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Culbertson was orbiting 250 miles above the planet alongside two Russian cosmonauts, Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From this silent, detached vantage point, Culbertson captured one of the most haunting and enduring photographic records of the 9\/11 terrorist attacks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Culbertson first learned of the attacks during a routine medical checkup via a radio call from Mission Control, who told him, “Frank, we’re not having a very good day down here.” Realizing the ISS was about to pass directly over the East Coast of the United States, Culbertson rushed through the station to find a window with a clear view of the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking down at New York City through a camera lens, he witnessed a massive, dark column of smoke billowing out of Lower Manhattan, streaming southward across Long Island and into the Atlantic Ocean. He snapped his iconic, sobering photograph just after the second World Trade Center tower collapsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The contrast between the pristine, quiet void of space and the violent tragedy unfolding below was jarring. In a public letter released the following day through the NASA History Office, Culbertson wrote: “It’s horrible to see smoke pouring from wounds in your own country from such a fantastic vantage point. The dichotomy of being on a spacecraft dedicated to improving life on the earth and watching life being destroyed by such willful, terrible acts is jolting to the psyche, no matter who you are.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the ISS continued its orbit, the tragedy struck even closer to home. Culbertson soon learned that American Airlines Flight 77 had been hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon. The pilot of that plane was Captain Charles “Chic” Burlingame\u2014Culbertson\u2019s close friend and former classmate from the U.S. Naval Academy flight school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the ISS flew over Washington, D.C. on a subsequent orbit, Culbertson could see the physical gash torn into the side of the Pentagon. Mourning from orbit, he noted, “Tears don’t flow the same in space.” A few days later, during a memorial service for Burlingame, Culbertson recorded a poignant tribute from the ISS, playing “Taps” on his trumpet into the weightless air<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond the smoke plumes of Ground Zero, Culbertson and his crew noticed another striking phenomenon over the next 24 to 48 hours. As the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all commercial aircraft across the United States, the sky underwent a dramatic transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within two orbits, the thousands of white contrails that normally crisscrossed the United States completely vanished. The sky below was totally empty, with one solitary exception: a single contrail moving eastward across the Midwest. It was Air Force One, carrying President George W. Bush back to Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Enduring Historical ArtifactCulbertson\u2019s photograph remains one of the most powerful artifacts of September 11. While millions of people watched the towers fall from street level or on television screens, his image gave humanity a macro-perspective of the tragedy. It showed a nation wounded, visible even from the cosmos, serving as a solemn reminder of a day that changed the world forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On September 11, 2001, NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson took photo from the ISS of smoke rising from the Twin Towers in New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1366,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/1366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.free-map.org\/maps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}