International Space Station's out-of-this-world selfie booth turns 15

It has been 15 years since the ultimate selfie booth, the Cupola, was attached to the International Space Station (ISS). The Cupola, delivered with the Tranquility Module (AKA Node 3), was carried to orbit as a payload on STS-130, flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour. The mission lasted nearly 14 days and began with a launch on …

[STOP_FORTH]

Not required on voyage

You don't need a selfie stick in space!

Might want to consider a lanyard, especially if you go outside.

[KittenHuffer]

Re: Not required on voyage

If going outside I'd want a full EVA suit!!!!

[Ken Shabby]

Re: Not required on voyage

‘I just going outside, and may be some time"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not required on voyage

At least no-one can hear you scream about losing your camera / phone.

[Gene Cash]

Re: Not required on voyage

LOL, no... there's been a couple toolkit losses and there's a LOT of screams when that happens.

Especially considering NASA's tool prices are even higher than Snap-On.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not required on voyage

I refuse to believe Snapon tools are cheaper than NASA tools.

[kmorwath]

"The Cupola was one of the last major US contributions added to the ISS"

But developed by ESA (Europe) and Alenia (Italy), as explained in the article?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "The Cupola was one of the last major US contributions added to the ISS"

Yeah, that kinda jarred when I read that last paragraph after being told further up that Alenia ended up designing and building it for ESA. It's not first time I've seen this sort of odd attribution mix up with NASA/ESA since El Reg went all American.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: "The Cupola was one of the last major US contributions added to the ISS"

It's been going on for years, here and elsewhere. I've lost count of how many times I've seen references to the NASA Hubble Space Telescope.

[collinsl]

Re: "The Cupola was one of the last major US contributions added to the ISS"

How much of the design was NASA before it was axed due to budget cuts? Plus it was launched on a NASA shuttle mission - the ESA not having the capacity at the time to launch such payloads IIRC.

[Marty McFly]

Great selfie

Add a couple pips to her collar along with a communicator badge, and astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti's outfit is straight out of ST:TNG.

[Michael B.]

Re: Great selfie

That's quite deliberate she was a big Voyager fan.

[druck]

Re: Great selfie

My oldest son, then 9, got to ask her a question on a live video from Farnborough Air Show to the ISS back in 2022, afterwards I was jumping up and down saying "you got to talk to an actual astronaut IN SPACE!!!!", having watched things like ST:TNG he didn't think it was anything particularly unusual!

[spold]

In particular

Chris Hadfield's video cover of Space Oddity recorded on the station featuring the Cupola - wonderful! (search it).