October 12, 1979
Music: AC/DC,
Welcome to the Jungle
The astronaut was looking into the eye of a monster - from above. Space station
Enterprise was sailing over the Pacific, most exactly over an immense storm which size, even from orbit 200 miles high, boggled the mind. Typhoon
Tip was, by itself, as large as half of the United States; a
1400 miles wide hurricane, the largest ever seen. The most striking feature was the storm colour, a pure white. He shivered. Somewhere in the inferno below he knew that a crew from the Air Force hurricane hunters - the 54th Weather squadron, flying modified Hercules military transports - was trying to penetrate the storm eye.
The eye: he could see it as a remote grey spot, an oasis of quietness rounded with 200 miles per hour winds. It was like some monster devouring the planet below; it was as if Enterprise was going to be sucked into hell.
Far above his head, somewhere in their polar orbits the militay and civilian weather satellites were capturing data. Enterprise for its part was in a less favourable orbit, although Tip size was such there would be a reasonable number of overflights. Enterprise featured Seasat spare synthetic apperture radar and a powerful multispectral camera. That, and the handheld Hasselblads - he already had superb shots of the storm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tip