Beyond the border of Washington, D.C., numerous suburbs spread across Virginia and Maryland. Many are accessible from the Capital Beltway (I-495), the highway that encircles Washington. An astronaut on the International Space Station captured this photo of the beltway’s northeast side where it passes through the historic city of Greenbelt, Maryland.
The photo was taken on July 30, 2023, a time of year when the region’s vegetation is lush and green. One of the more prominent green spaces in this image is Greenbelt Park. The park’s nearly 5 square kilometers (2 square miles) contain forested hiking trails, several picnic areas, and a campground. The land was once intended as a future extension of the city of Greenbelt, but it was acquired by the National Park Service in 1950.
Just north of the park, Greenbelt’s historic district is laid out in a crescent shape. The district is one of three planned communities that arose in the 1930s as part of the New Deal program, intended to provide work for the unemployed and to create affordable cooperative housing with accessible green space. Homes connect to walking paths, which in turn connect to one of the country’s oldest planned shopping centers.
A collection of buildings east of the beltway is NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, established in Greenbelt on May 1, 1959, as NASA’s first spaceflight complex. …