strapped in the module in a criss-cross fashion, so that the crossing point defined the centre of where the camera needed to be.

"The astronauts had to take the pictures at the defined angles and float around the camera to complete the set of images."

It took up to 24 such images to create a single panorama.

The astronauts had to fit the activity round their other duties and, from first snap to last image download to Google, the initiative lasted four months.

image copyright Google image caption Google has annotated points of interest on the panoramas

"There are a lot of obstacles up there, and we had limited time to capture the imagery," recalled astronaut Thomas Pesquet in a blog.

"Oh, and there's that whole zero gravity thing."

The notes that pop up asto work. … "The people who take advantage of this are some of the poorest of the poor people in the country," Cook told CP. "Their average annual income is $2200 a person. They are among the most difficult to employee. If the government says our economy works well, when we have five or six percent unemployment, because that's our policy, at least they can eat." But according to Ken Blackwell, who is the Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at the conservative Christian lobbying group, Family Research Council, programs like food stamps prevented people from being truly empowered. "I think through empowering others and creating self-sufficiency…there within lies the path to sense of worthiness," Blackwell told CP. "When I was growing up, there was fundamental belief, that there