Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/12/the-first-selfie-in-space-was.html
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whelp, i was going to say that Buzz would never have called it a “selfie” because he was a badass, but then there’s a tweet by him actually calling it that, and now i just don’t know what to think about anything anymore…
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Based on the labeling on something to on frame left, also the first dick pic in space?
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Back in ye days of olde film, you’d have to advance the film with one knob, “cock” the shutter, and then depress the button to “fire/trigger” the shutter and take your picture. With reflex cameras, the action of advancing the film with the film advance lever would also “cock” the shutter. So, by the 60’s, “cocking” the camera was a common term for “actuating the film advance lever to progress the film roll and load the shutter for firing.”
The particular model you see in this picture is a 70mm Maurer camera, which took very good pictures with (what was for the time) a large specialty film format. The canister you see was a special film cartridge job; in order to load the first frame, you’d need to “cock” the shutter. The only thing that confuses me is that we are looking at the back of the camera . How the hell did he take this picture with the lens pointing over his shoulder? Guess there must have been a second camera.
Edit: You can take a look at what they packed for this trip here, from the NASA archives.
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Yeah I knew that. I was making a joke.
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This title is awfully presumptious @pesco - I’d think a guy with a Sasquatch icon might entertain the idea there’s some being somewhere in the galaxy that’s done a selfie before humans 
Was Alexey Leonov lacking in camera gear?
It had to be Aldrin, didn’t it…
Self promotion is one of the duties of the LMP.
That’s just how badass @TheRealBuzz is.
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So Buzz has reclaimed the word from hipsters and made it usable again? He really is a hero many times over!
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I would have loved to see
@TheRealBuzz tweeting from the moon. That alone would have made the trip worthwhile.
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey blogging on the moon)
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Or a mirror, and the helpful PAOs at NASA reversed the image before releasing it. On the footage from the mercury flights, you can see a mirror mounted on the chest of the spacesuit so that the film of the astronaut would also show the instruments.
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Better than my explanation; that we’re just seeing the back of an extra film pack, and not the camera itself. I almost thought that was the answer, but no, you can see the dock for the flash module on top of the camera.
Saw the term “micrometeorite” and started to wonder–are there possibly small particles of debris whizzing around the Earth at bullet-like speeds? I mean obviously the chill and vacuum of space is a threat so every time an astronaut goes outside it’s dangerous, BUT… are astronauts also constantly under an additional threat of random tiny objects puncturing their suits? Are such bits of debris just rare enough, in the vastness of it all, that the chance is so minimal it’s not even worried about? Are space suits designed to withstand something like that?
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