building a series of boxes, that when open show
the earth as would be viewed from a specific satellite. The idea being
that these would be very nice wooden boxes, open up and you can see
the screen, possibly in a mirror in the lid, with the earth rendered
by Celestia at that current time, keep it open and watch the earth
scroll past.

[[Tom’s feedback:

I like this idea a lot. particularly if the orientation of the image changes when you move the box. You could make a small enough box with a single board computer or laptop (hell, even a Mac Mini) inside, and an accelerometer and matnetometer to sense the orientation. In fact, this might be the strongest idea of the lot.]]