January 11th, 2011 
Admin We are so accustomed to seeing the earth portrayed with the north pole "at the top" but there is obviously no reason that this must be the case. I would think that some governments or educational systems might wish to "upend" this convention. (???)
And I wonder: Have their been space exploration situations where a capsule has been preferentially oriented so that the perspective when looking out the window has been aligned to fit such biases?
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Maps that were created for long navigation (usually by sea) as opposed to maps covering a small area were first drawn up for nation-states that would need them, which would mean Europe. At that time (say, 14th-15th century), they would commonly have Jerusalem at the center, so orientation along a North-South or East-West axis was secondary.
As these maps were enlarged by exploration over the years, they became set with the Northern hemisphere at the top, since that would be more ‘natural’ for sailors and cartographers from Europe. Cultures from the Southern hemisphere at that time did not have interest or ability to sail long international distances. So by the time European maps reached them, or were needed, the bias towards the North was already set.
Most spacecraft travel in a slightly offset plane from the equator, so they actually end up going in a somewhat ‘diagonal’ orientation. Since you obviously cannot see borders or place names in space, the perspective is irrelevant. There are other technical reasons why spacecraft must be pointed in various directions, so map bias is pretty far down the list.