When it comes to booking the perfect summer getaway, it's hard to find a place that's truly relaxing. Heading to the lake is a long drive for three days of swatting away mosquitos. Flights are expensive, leaving tropical locales like Bali, Hawaii and Puerto Rico out of the question. Staycations, while affordable have one problem — too much wifi and cell service.
So where can you go for a truly relaxing weekend of solitude? Space — just ask the old-school astronauts who got to visit for themselves.
From snaps taken during the first United States space walk to an Apollo 1 crew pool party, here are 23 vintage NASA pics to fuel your need to get away.
1
“April 9, 1959 NASA introduced America's first astronauts who became known as the Original Seven.”
2
“Nasa Mission Control Center, 1960s.”
4
“The first 3 African Americans to travel to space: Ronald McNair, Guy Bluford and Fred Gregory (from NASAs 1978 astronaut selection).”
6
“NASA astronaut Anna Lee Fisher wearing an Apollo spacesuit, 1978.”
7
“NASA testing an early space suit design in the Mojave Desert (1962).”
8
“Judy Sullivan, NASA's first female spacecraft operations engineer, monitors astronauts' biomedical sensors during the Apollo 11 mission, 1969.”
9
“... In 1958, NASA officially began operations. In less than 3 years, they would put an astronaut in space. Here's Scott Carpenter posing in front of the Mercury control center in 1961.”
10
“NASA Apollo 1 crew in 1966.”
11
Astronaut Ed White during the first US Space Walk during the Gemini 4 mission, 1965
12
“A NASA employee/witch with her high tech broom at Lewis Field in the 1970s.”
13
“NASA Scientists in 1961.”
14
The first “earth rise” ever witnessed during the Apollo 8 mission, 1968.
15
Buzz Aldrin places a solar wind sheet on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission, 1969.
16
Ed White during the Gemini 4 spacewalk, 1965.
17
“Astronaut Bruce McCandless II floating untethered through space, 1984.”
18
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin taking a ‘selfie’ in Space, 1966
19
Astronaut John Young on the moon during the Apollo 16 mission, 1972.
20
“Apollo era astronauts wearing their American Optical ‘pilot’ sunglasses. (1960s - 1970s).”
21
“Holding a small model of the Apollo capsule that NASA staff gave him, President Kennedy speaks in front of an early mock-up of the lunar module. September 11 and 12, 1962.”
22
“My grandmother with then-Mercury 7 astronauts John Glenn, Gus Grissom, and Alan Shepherd (September 14th, 1959).”
23
Ed White, depicted yet again during the Gemini 4 spacewalk, 1965.
