Firefly T-Shirt Pimped Out For International Space Station’s First Instagram Photo
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Everybody uses social media to promote and compare their likes and dislikes with millions of others doing the same thing. And while it’s hard to sift through all the noise of grumpy cats, relationship troubles, and “Which Farm Animal Are You?” quizzes, there will sometimes be a person or entity who stands above all. Quite literally, in this case, as NASA astronaut Steve Swanson posted the first Instagram picture from the International Space Station, and he just happened to be wearing a Firefly T-shirt while doing so, which technically makes it the coolest gorram shirt in the universe.
Swanson is the perfect guy to represent the Serenity’s Shipping & Logistics crew, too. For his first trip into space back in 2007, as part of Space Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-117, Swanson packed up a set of Firefly DVDs, as well as Joss Whedon’s film Serenity, and left them in the ISS library for future residents to enjoy. That kind of behavior makes the rest of the ISS crews over the years look shameful in comparison, but we still like them. (Especially the ones that jam Bowie tunes.) How strange is it that Swanson and his fellow ISS mates Oleg Artemyev and Aleksandr Skvortsov (both from Russia) will be in space longer than Firefly was actually on the air? I guess it isn’t, since Fox isn’t in charge of ISS missions.
But Captain Mal & Co. aren’t the only beloved characters Swanson is repping while orbiting the planet. As you can see in the post below, the astronaut got some blood work done while representing the Klingons. What I wouldn’t give to see a Worf Fat Head decal attached to one of the ISS’ windows.
Swanson, whose Expedition 39 mission began at the end of March, has been busy adding to his sci-fi bona fides with awesome images of Earth. Considering he’ll be up there for another five and a half months, I think we can expect many more posts of all kinds in the future. Maybe a video of him humming the Firefly theme? We’ll see. For now, check out the self-explanatory posts below of the Northern Lights and islands.
Not that the ISS’ social media has been silent before Swanson’s pics, as NASA’s Rick Mastracchio has kept the Twitter universe drooling over his own fantastic images over the past six months, such as the two below.
Island (Heard?) in the Southern Ocean pokes through the clouds. pic.twitter.com/LwdY1TWvKg
— Rick Mastracchio (@AstroRM) March 30, 2014
In the station you can get into some tight places. Here I am looking for a loose connection on CO2 removal system pic.twitter.com/6DRv6ah5pI
— Rick Mastracchio (@AstroRM) April 13, 2014
