Zee Media Bureau
London: Taking the selfie craze to all new heights, two former engineering students from the University of Sheffield in South Yorkshire have made 'space selfies' a possibility.
Alex Baker and Chris Rose will send almost anything to space and snap it there.
They have been sending up "payloads" to the edge of space via customised balloons - including a diamond ring, toy cars and newspaper front pages.
They have also sent dozens of family photographs in what they call the "ultimate space selfie".
The procedure needs a digital camera, some off-cuts of foam and a giant helium balloon that goes 37 km up into near space.
Their creation — Do-It-Yourself (DIY) kit — helps customers launch their own space balloons for an amount less than Rs 50,000.
Since their first launch in 2011 the two engineers have developed a GPS tracking system to collect their payloads after they land. So far, they have lost only one item.
"We have dreamt of being astronauts since we saw footage of Joseph Kittinger jumping from a balloon in the 1960s - becoming the first person to see the curvature of the Earth," Baker was quoted as saying.
(With Agency inputs)
