NASA strives to make Gore’s "earthly" dream come true

"The `all-earth, all-the time’ images, to be transmitted from a small spacecraft stationed between Earth and the Sun, would resemble the historic portrait of the fragile and isolated blue planet snapped by Apollo 17 astronauts — the last men on the moon, on December 1972," the daily said.

The new version would capture surface features as small as five miles square and would depict the motions of changing clouds, the advance of hurricanes, large-scale fires in oil fields or forests and other phenomena asthey actually exist virtually at that same moment.

NASA administrator Daniel S Golden said that he hopes to keep the project’s cost close to 20 million dollars, and definitely below 50 million dollars.

Gore dreamt up the idea in his sleep about a month ago, waking up at 3 am one night, the paper said.