If there's one thing we love more than perusing all the wonderful, but sadly low-altitude photos in the SFist Flickr pool, it's checking out our fair city from somewhere up in orbit. This photo, snapped from the International Space Station on July 3rd, shows the San Francisco Bay with the Central Valley, the Sierra Nevadas and all of the inconceivably vast firmament beyond. It's OK if you're a little dizzy.

To get your bearings: the Bay and the peninsula are there along the coastline towards the bottom right. Lake Tahoe would be that blue spot just below the robot arm there. Pop on over to the Fragile Oasis flickr stream to blow this thing up big enough to see the silt in the Bay.

In sad, but related space program news today: Sally Ride, America's first female astronaut, passed away today after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 61 years old.

Previously: A Sunny Day in San Francisco, From Space
Hat tip to local blogger/stargazer Bluoz for the Flickr find.