Oct 13, 2009

Space exploration [infographic]



I haven't a clue where this originated (this is why you label your infographics, people); I found it via the DataViz tumblr.

Update: Cool Infographics has the answer...

National Geographic published this amazing flight map that shows the flight paths of all 200 space missions in the last 50 years. A zoomable map is on the NG website, and a high-res image is available from Adam Crowe on Flickr.

Art by Sean McNaughton, National Geographic Staff, Samuel Velasco, 5W Infographics.

This is a beautifully designed infographic in every way except one: I understand it would be impractical to draw the distances to scale, but they could at least draw the sizes to scale.

Addendum: My friend the PhD Astrophysicist comments below that he thinks I would be unsatisfied if the sizes were drawn to scale, but looking at the image below, I still think it is do-able.