NASA Releases Unprecedented International Space Station Footage (VIDEO)
If you were impressed by NASA's recent International Space Station photos, we have good news.
NASA has posted a video follow-up, featuring seven-and-a-half minutes of stunning footage taken from outside the aeronautic research facility. Like the photos, the video was captured by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli and two crewmates drifting away from the space station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The footage, taken on May 23, would have arrived on the Web sooner, had the data storage cards that transported the multi-media had not been required to pass Russian cargo inspection before they could be published.
According toMSNBC's Cosmic Log, it's likely this footage is truly one of a kind:
Only one space shuttle flight remains, with the launch of Atlantis due on July 8, and there are no plans for a similar fly-around during that mission. So this may be the only video ever seen in which a space shuttle and the space station appear together.
All of the clips offer remarkable views, but be sure to watch through to the end to see the space station fade off into a tiny tinsel-like speck on the screen.
WATCH:
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The Huffington Post Steven Hoffer
First Posted: 06/09/11 12:42 PM ET Updated: 08/09/11 06:12 AM ET