I've been praising NASA's World Wind and not mentioning Google Earth much. Google Earth is a great program, I just think World Wind is better. That said Google Earth is a smaller download and seems to run a little smoother.
World Wind is definitely better for education (see previous posts), Google Earth is better for consumers. Users out there have created add-ons for Google Earth that can be found at googleearthhacks.com
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2 comments:
One use I have enjoyed with Google Earth is to show the students the height (or lack thereof) of the ISS, Shuttle, etc. Tilt the view, set the eye alt, and give the world a little spin. It's too bad I can't get it to move slowly enough to be realistic. But still.
It really seems to catch the students off guard; they have this image of the ISS being about an Earth radii up, for some reason.
Have you tried Celestia? Celestia is a great 3D space simulation software program. It does include the ISS and you can slow things down or even stop them. (http://falconphysics.blogspot.com/2005/07/celestia.html)
Or you can simply park yourself in space and wait for it to shoot by to give students an idea how fast stuff actually moves in space.
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