How High Up Is Space

The dark overlay indicates where it is nighttime in the world.

How high up is space. But the earth s outer atmosphere also known as the. Space starts here at 100 kilometers the view from here. It s 50 miles for the united states air force it s 60 miles for most people and just recently i saw they wanted to move it up to 75 or 80 miles.

Hot air balloon altitude record. The international space station travels hundreds of miles above the earth but traveling there takes as long as it does to fly from new york to la. Satellites that orbit at a higher altitude can orbit for decades or even hundreds of years without slowing down from atmospheric drag.

Mesosphere of earth s atmosphere. There s some new body that wants to move it up even higher so that none of us will be flying into space if they get their way. So it s not that the atmosphere ends at the karman line it s simply that at that altitude it becomes too insignificant to support flights that rely on air quality.

Stratosphere of earth s atmosphere including the ozone layer. Live space station tracking map. In the us space begins at 80 4km 50 miles or 264 000 feet.

From that perspective the international space station which orbits at only 330 435 kilometers above the earth isn t even worthy of its name. General international consensus sets a similar limit for the start of space as 100km 62 miles or 380 000 feet. Nasa awards astronaut status for flights above 50 miles.

The tracker top map shows where the space station is right now and its path 90 minutes ago 1 5 hr and 90 minutes ahead 1 5 hr. By the same token space is often defined as beginning at the lowest altitude at which satellites can maintain orbits for a reasonable time which is approximately 160 kilometers 100 miles above.