A Tweet From Space Confirms The Selfie Craze Has Escaped Earth’s Confines

Earlier this week, American astronaut Rick Mastracchio sent out a tweet from space. though Tweets from space aren’t uncommon, this one was the first of its kind.

While working on the International Space Station, two astronauts out on a space-walk decided to take some photos. While this too is also isn’t uncommon, a few of the images taken by the astronauts were Selfies, the first time astronauts in space have taken such images. As expected, the results are nothing short of stellar.

While replacing a dead primary computer outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, two astronauts took a few ‘Selfies’ which is now certainly giving the earth dwellers envious goosebumps. Within hours of taking the photos, Rick Mastracchio posted the image on Twitter acknowledging the odd angle of the photo saying, “The spacesuit makes it very difficult to get a good selfie. I tried several today,” reported Fox News.

An EVA selfie. The space suit makes it very difficult to get a good selfie. I tried several today. pic.twitter.com/GvMEOj3ewu

— Rick Mastracchio (@AstroRM) April 23, 2014

“My arms are too short for a selfie,” Mastracchio posted, who requested fellow astronaut Steven Swanson to take his picture. Even NASA joined in on the fun, saying, “As one might imagine, the confines of a spacesuit make it difficult to snap a proper selfie, but he was able to pull it off after a few tries.”

The astronauts were out for an extended spacewalk that involved replacing multiple components from a backup computer box aboard the ISS. One of the major components was a high–density battery pack that was confirmed to have malfunctioned and gone dead.

Though the primary computer is now running fine, NASA never takes chances and was rightly worried that if the primary computer went down, the malfunctioning battery wouldn’t allow the backup computer to step in, which would put the entire ISS in danger.

This mission was indeed critical as these two computers – the primary and backup – control the precision pointing or orientation of the solar wings and radiators, as well as the movement of the robot-arm rail cart. As one can imagine, the solar arrays are the most critical external components that generate electricity by gathering solar rays. The ISS is currently a space–home for six men – two Americans, three Russians and a single Japanese cosmonaut.

Despite the importance of the mission, the two astronauts successfully completed the mission within the time frame and then exchanged a few jokes and laughs as they prepared to go back inside. Tweeting, blogging and even sending interesting observations in zero–gravity from the ISS has become very routine, but now the trend has been extended to include Selfies. Wonder how far this will go?

[Image Credit | NBC News]