Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly has spilled his support for Ukraine in the metaverse with the launch of his first-ever NFT. Proceeds from the initial sale will be donated to Ukrainian survivors, as the Russian invasion continues to escalate.
Kelly is a four-time spaceflight veteran, leading Expeditions 26, 45, and 46 of the International Space Station (ISS). His first spaceflight was on STS-103 in December 1999 as a pilot on the Space Shuttle Discovery.
Until college, the self-described "man of the people" was a notoriously bad student and an avid daydreamer. Here, he found unintentional inspiration in Tom Wolfe's classic account of the lives of the first Americans to explore space, The Right Stuff.
Kelly, a staunch supporter of inspiring future generations, offers up this NFT drop as a love letter to all the daydreamers out there who may not have found their calling just yet, to show them what's possible once inspiration strikes and you believe in making dreams a reality no matter how far-fetched they may seem at the time.
He was the former record holder for the longest space flight and is no stranger to exploring the unknown as a veteran of NASA's Year in Space Mission. His entry into the NFT area is a natural continuation for this space pioneer, who sees NFTs as the building blocks of the metaverse, a brand new digital universe yet in its infancy but with limitless possibilities.
Kelly, who spent 340 days on the International Space Station in 2015 and 2016, has just released his first-ever NFT, an art piece titled "Dreams Out of This World," intending to inspire others to reach for the skies like an iconic book did for him.
The "Dreams Out of This World" release is a partnership with Orange Comet, a content development firm. Kelly is shown in space with variously re-imagined Earths in the background in a sequence of pieces. These items, as well as other of Kelly's astronaut mementos, were auctioned off today (Apr. 12), the International Day of Human Spaceflight, which commemorates cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's historic 1961 orbital journey.
With the continuing crisis in Ukraine, Kelly is delighted to donate 100% of the net revenues from the initial NFT sale to the Global Empowerment Mission to help Ukraine battle Russia. Kelly is a staunch supporter of peaceful international relations as a means of advancing humanity, and he hopes to do everything in his ability to guarantee that freedom triumphs.
On the NFT marketplace OpenSea, the auction was set to run for three days. However, the entire collection sold out in just a few hours, raising almost $500,000 in the process.
