Brother’s Space Selfie mission raises awareness of global environment

Brother is on a unique mission to take 100 space selfies to help encourage people around the world to think about the importance of the global environment.

As part of the global print and technology specialist’s 'Mission to the Earth’ project, Brother Industries, Ltd. launched a customised balloon with a circumference of 9.4 metres 30,000 metres into the stratosphere above Japan.

The bespoke balloon, made out of rubber included a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) camera to shoot the selfies on the way up to the stratosphere.

To be part of the bespoke mission to have a selfie with shots of the earth featured as a backdrop, Brother invited members of the public from around the world to upload photographs of their faces through Brother’s Mission to the Earth microsite.

They received a total of 808 photographs, from which a lucky 100 were selected at random for Brother’s environmentally-focussed mission.

As the balloon rose to stratospheric heights, the photos were projection mapped onto a mini model of an astronaut to give an authentic ‘interstellar’ image for the cosmic selfie series.

To complete the space scene, the CCD camera filmed views from the stratosphere. The footage was saved to an SD card, which was retrieved when the balloon was brought down from the stratosphere

Now the projection mapped space selfies and five minutes of footage from the stratosphere will be brought together on the Mission to the Earth microsite, where people will be able to view their personal step into space. The final imagery will be posted on the microsite on 25^th September and can be found at http://www.brotherearth.com/en/event/mission/

The purpose of Brother’s ‘Mission to the Earth’ event is to highlight the global company’s commitment to the importance of the environment. This commitment is captured under Brother Earth, representing Brother’s ethical approach to the planet. www.brotherearth.com