71. Will there be windows? What will we see? (A K2S Question)

From The Space Library

The orbiter has six windows around the commander and pilot, plus two overhead at the rear of the flight deck, plus two more looking back into the payload bay, plus one in the side hatch. All the windows, except for the ones looking back into the payload bay and the side hatch window, have three panes, with a total thickness of about 2.55 inches. The two payload bay windows have only two panes with a total thickness of 0.6 inch. The hatch window has three panes but the total thickness is only 1.05 inches. The glass in all windows is carefully ground so that one can look out and take pictures with virtually no distortion. In the daytime you can see the Earth below and the stars if you look away from the Sun. At night you can see the city lights on the Earth's surface and the stars in the black sky. If you are near another spacecraft, like the International Space Station (ISS), you can see it quite clearly because there is no atmosphere to interfere.

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Answer provided by Jon H. Brown

Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer

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