Can You See A Laser Pointer From The Space Station?

Green laser pointers are amazingly useful tools for teaching the general public about the night sky, it's easy to point out specific targets and have everyone know what you mean. Sometimes people will point out satellites and even the ISS, so I wanted to figure out whether an astronaut on the ISS would be able to see lasers from people on the ground.
Here's the original video of the ISS Flash project:

[apophis]

Answer to video title:
YES, IF IT'S MADE BY STYROPYRO.

[grantl]

Illuminate the ISS?
This sounds like a job for Styropyro!

[theCodyReeder]

I once shot my high powered blue laser at the space station while recording the live feed from the space station web cam on my computer and you could see a blue dot flashing from the ground. the problem is I was never able to recreate it so I dont know for sure if the flash was from me or something else. Edit: I just found the video, the quality is not great, in fact its rather bad since I had to download it off face book, but I'll email it to you.

[recklessroges]

Expected a "no" got a "yes".

[eklhaft]

In a lab I work with a laser. The manual says the minimum eye-safe distance in the direction of the beam is 158km. I always wondered what that number might be good for.

[TWAT]

As an airline pilot, once again please do not shine them at me.

[nearestyoutube]

Who else is just scrolling through comments whilst he chats away, until you reach someone's comment directing you to the answer Yes at 6:50?

[jgregorygraves]

Despite all the complaining about how long this video is I loved all of it and I appreciated the entire explanation. Thank you for sharing.

[scottd]

When I lived in England, food deliveries could never find my house. So I would go outside and shine a green laser into the air for them to find me. It was a bit more powerful than a pointer.

[sarjim]

Seriously, don't point those green lasers at aircraft. I was the observer on a law enforcement helicopter for a number of years. We had one idiot paint us with a laser as we were orbiting over the scene of a murder and foot pursuit. The pilot was dazzled enough we had to break off the orbit until he regained his eyesight. Unfortunately for Laser Dude, we also had a GPS following the Night Sun searchlight, and we were able to light him up before we broke off. It took five patrol units about five minutes to have him custody after fighting with officers and doing the electric boogaloo for a couple minutes.. He served 4.5 years in prison on a combined state and federal felony charge. Just don't do it.

[PaulPaulPaulson]

* puts on black hat *
What if we tried more power?

[Cythil]

The picture of the laser aimed at the space station from the ground was pretty neat. Glad someone made this experiment. ^_^

[chrismcquade]

I'm a pilot and have been lased a few times at night and it is quite annoying, but I can't say it's ever blinded me. The whole hand held nature just makes it flash randomly. These days though, with GPS we just tell ATC the lat/long or street address and they send the cops, 5 minutes later we can see a more satisfying kind of flashing lights :)

[whitedovetail]

Rule #1 Never point a laser at a person, auto, or aircraft. When I was studying Laser technology back in 1978 & 79 we had to memorize the safety rules concerning lasers and yep, it is #1!! Great Video Scott!!!

[cienciabit]

What about pointing to geostationary weather satellites? They are far away (36 000 km), but you could aim precisely with many pointers ...

[ilikelefunymemes]

So I could grab my 2.5 watt laser, and send a message to iss saying:


S E N D N U D E S

[WakarimasenKa]

Well.. If it is illegal to dazzle parties, I'll just stay at home.

[adamrasmussen]

But how much of the light would be obstructed in the atmosphere?

[leopardcubpupkryky]

This was THE most interesting thing YouTube has recommended to me in a long time.👍👍

[-.._.-_...-_.._-..__..._.-.-.-]

Communications are down. Get the laser guys.