Californian YouTuber spends $5 million of his own money to find a way for people to 'go' to space for free

This Californian YouTuber has found a way for anyone to have their photo taken in space.

It’s free and doesn’t require any space training or even setting foot on a rocket.

The Space Selfie project has taken three years and $5 million to pull off.

Anyone can use it to get a selfie that is truly out of this world.

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Mark Rober is now a Californian YouTuber, but he’s also a former NASA engineer.

Three years ago, he started the Space Selfie project to capture ‘the most epic selfies in the Universe’.

After spending $5 million on development, the satellite was ready for launch.

It was joining about 10,000 other satellites already up there, causing traffic in space.

It hitched a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The satellite is called SAT GUS, named after Rober’s company mascot: a squirrel named Phat Gus.

Its launch was successful, and SAT GUS has been orbiting the Earth 375 miles from its surface for a few months now.

Now flying at 17,000 miles an hour, SAT GUS serves a very specific and unique role.

It has a screen that receives selfies from Earth, and a camera that photographs the screen.

The sender will get their photo back, showing their selfie with Earth casually photobombing in the background.

The project serves no purpose other than to give people a cool photo.

Almost as cool as the selfie NASA’s Perseverance Rover took with a surprising natural phenomenon in the background.

Best of all, SAT GUS is free for anyone to use.

Bonus points if you’re on the part of Earth visible in the background of your selfie: a truly otherworldly ‘double selfie’.

After launch, the team took SAT GUS’s first space selfie, starring none other than Phat Gus.