First space selfie
Photographer: Buzz Aldrin
Date: November 1966
Location: Low Earth orbit
Buzz Aldrin took this self-portrait photograph during NASA's Gemini 12 mission on November 12, 1966, while performing an extravehicular activity (spacewalk) over Earth. Taken with a Hasselblad camera mounted on his chest, it is widely considered the first selfie taken in space. The Gemini 12 mission was the final flight of the Gemini program, which served as a bridge between the Mercury and Apollo programs. Aldrin performed three spacewalks during the mission totaling more than 5.5 hours, demonstrating that humans could work effectively in the vacuum of space — overcoming problems that had plagued earlier spacewalks.
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