Waterbury Native, NASA Astronaut Takes Out-of-This-World Selfie

Waterbury native Rick Mastracchio took time out to snap an impressive selfie from outer space on Wednesday after he replaced a failed backup computer box on the International Space Station.

It was all in a day's work for the NASA astronaut, who pointed out on Twitter that his spacesuit was too bulky for him to take a proper selfie. But that didn't keep him from trying. His tweeted the photo, which featured a beaming Mastracchio against the glowing blue earth in the background.

Mastracchio and fellow astronaut Steve Swanson on Wednesday removed an old backup computer box that stopped responding to commands on April 11 and installed a spare box, known as a multiplexer-demultiplexer, or MDM. The box is part of a backup system that controls critical equipment on the ISS.

Mastracchio has been on the ISS since November of last year and currently serves as a flight engineer. He has been with NASA since 1987, according to his bio on nasa.gov. Before NASA, Mastracchio went to high school in Waterbury, received his B.S. from the University of Connecticut and attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for his masters degree.

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