Astronaut Scott Kelly has been in space since March on a year-long mission gathering data aboard the International Space Station for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). Yesterday he decided to get involved in the first Sunday of football athletics, like many Americans were doing back home. Instead of watching from the couch though, Kelly snapped a picture of Soldier Field, the Chicago Bears stadium, from his cosmic perspective, according to local news affiliate WGNtv.com.
“My new hobby! Get a #SundayNFLStadiumPicFromSpace,” Kelly Tweeted out with the accompanying photo. “First up- #SoldierField, #Chicago #NFLGameDay #NFL #YearInSpace.”
By the sounds of it Kelly plans to continue this visual adventure throughout the year, and hopefully he does. While it didn’t give any luck to the home town sports team (the Bears lost to the rival Green Bay Packers, 31-23) it did provide a fascinating look at the Chicago skyline, along with the beautiful, blue backdrop of Lake Michigan. It also was a subtle reminder that although sports reign supreme in many aspects of American culture, there are vastly more important things going on every moment of every day.
Professional, collegiate, and high school teams all have bleachers of varying sizes, from 10 feet wide to entire wrap-around stadiums. Soldier Field is the oldest stadium in the National Football League (NFL), opening in 1924. The 61,500 capacity stadium is currently the third smallest in the NFL, well below the 70,000 person average for football facilities, and only slightly over the 47,000 average for baseball ones.
Still, with renovations done in 2003 it has ranked as one of the top ten football stadiums by many publications recently, like 247sports.com, which placed it fourth on their list. They argued, “it’s got the old-school feel of a smash-mouth football game, and the new-school, updated amenities to keep fans coming back.”
And now it’s got a very new-school, profile picture worthy photograph to go with it.
