He may have lost out on being the first man to step foot on the moon… but Buzz Aldrin was the first to take a selfie in space.
Two days before the 45th anniversary of his and Neil Armstrong’s groundbreaking foray onto the moon’s dusty lunar surface on July 20, 1969, Aldrin tweeted perhaps one of the best selfies ever.
‘Did you know I took the first space selfie during Gemini 12 mission in 1966? BEST SELFIE EVER,’ he wrote alongside the unique photo.
Best selfie ever? Buzz Aldrin took the first ever space selfie in 1966
There is a stunning glimpse of planet earth viewed from space in the background.
Talking about the 1966 photo, the 84-year-old said in an interview with CNN: ‘I didn’t realise I was pioneering the selfie.’
Aldrin began his career as an astronaut in 1963 after serving in the United States Air Force.
The retired astronaut, pictured here in January, claims he pioneered the space selfie.
‘We were docked to the other spacecraft… there was an experimenter from North West University and he wanted pictures taken of ultraviolet stars, so we could only take pictures at night,’ he explained of the mission.
During the daytime, Aldrin said he was looking down at earth and the lakes around Houston, Texas, when he thought: ‘What am I going to do during the daytime?’
It was then that he decided he would ‘look at the camera and hit the button’.
‘What for? I don’t know. I wondered what I looked like,’ he said.
Buzz Aldrin in the lunar module during the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969
This photo shows Aldrin taking his first steps on the moon. He began his career as an astronaut in 1963 after serving in the United States Air Force
Aldrin posing for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during an Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on the lunar surface.
‘Another claim to fame for Buzz,’ he laughed in the CNN interview.
Aldrin’s first claim to fame was, of course, walking on the moon behind Armstrong.
Armstrong famously stepped out of Apollo 11 and said ‘that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’.
While Aldrin’s first words on the moon were ‘Beautiful view. Magnificent desolation.’
He was reportedly second out of Apollo 11 because it was easier for Armstrong to exit the spacecraft first because of their positions inside the compact lunar landing module.
Armstrong died on August 25, 2012, in Cincinnati, Ohio, after complications resulting from heart surgery.
On Sunday, Aldrin tweeted of his old friend and colleague: ‘On this 45th anniversary of our moon landing I am heading to KSC to meet up with Michael Collins. Neil will be missed but with us in spirit.’
Collins was the command module pilot for Apollo 11. He orbited the Moon while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the surface.
The astronauts of the Apollo 11 space mission: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin (left to right). On Sunday, Aldrin tweeted: ‘On this 45th anniversary of our moon landing I am heading to KSC to meet up with Michael Collins. Neil will be missed but with us in spirit.’
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin raising the American flag on the Moon