astronaut

The NASA astronaut was out on a spacewalk with crew member Steve Swanson to replace a backup computer box on the International Space Station when he decided to take a photo.

"The space suit makes it very difficult to get a good selfie. I tried several today," Mastracchio said of the photo.

From: The Science of Reality

"It might make the astronaut wearing it look like a real-life Buzz Lightyear, but a new prototype spacesuit that NASA just finished testing represents the first major overhaul in spacesuit technology since 1998."

In this image taken on Nov. 7, 2012, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst (partially obscured), both Expedition 40/41 flight engineers, attired in training versions of their Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits, are submerged in the waters of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) near NASA's Johnson Space Center. Divers (out of frame) are in the water to assist Wiseman and Gerst in their rehearsal, which is intended to help prepare them for work on the exterior of the International Space Station.

On Sept. 12, 1992, Mae Jemison became the first African American woman in space when the space shuttle Endeavour carried her and six other astronauts on 126 orbits around the Earth. A mission specialist, Jemison was a co-investigator of two bone cell research experiments, one of 43 investigations that were done on mission STS-47.