NASA celebrates 16 years of space living with ISS GIFs
An animated timeline of the world's home above the heavens.
On November 2, 2011, Expedition 1 commander William Shepherd and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko appeared on camera to celebrate the first long-duration stay on the International Space Station (ISS). 16 years later, NASA is commemorating that event with the best way to celebrate anything on the internet: With GIFs. Here are some of those images.
The building of the space station took place between 1998 to 2011 and involved the contributions of space agencies from 15 different countries.
Before it was even completed the station was hosting the Exhibition 1 astronauts and cosmonauts. Here is their first on-camera appearance complete with odd triple handshake at the beginning of that mission.
The ISS had a unique view of the terrorist attacks on New York City in 2001. This image was captured by Expedition 3 commander Frank Culbertson.
On May 29, 2009, the first six person crew consisting of astronauts from NASA, CSA, ESA, JAXA, and Russia held a press conference. NASA says this is the only time all the ISS partners were represented at the same time on the station.
Ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics the torch made an appearance during a space walk.
On July 18, 2014, astronaut Reid Weisman filmed an experiment NASA hopes will lead to better engines. The circle of fire floating in space is something you don't see everyday and is incredibly mesmerizing.
Watching the sun rise over the Earth.
For more images, check out NASA's complete list.
