What man-made things on earth can be seen from space? When human first flew in space, they were amazed to discover that the only man-made object visible from orbit was "the Great Wall of China". This is the nice idea, but it's not true. The Great Wall is mostly gray stone in a gray landscape and, in fact, is very difficult to see even from an airplane flying at a mere 15 kilometers above. What can be seen when orbiting the earth (from about 200 kilometers up) are the loght of the world's large metropolitan areas.