Suspended in space with a dramatic visual of the planet's surface below, a clip that was shared to X on Sept. 4, 2023, claimed to have captured "Astronaut Jack Fischer's amazing view of the Earth during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station." At the time of this publication, the one post had over 1 million views:
Astronaut Jack Fischer's amazing view of the Earth during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station.
?: NASA Johnson pic.twitter.com/I42pWOwwzr
— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) September 4, 2023
By searching content posted to X, Snopes determined that a version of the video was first shared to the platform on July 23, 2021. A look through the thread revealed that Fischer, through his official account, confirmed the event happened, in a comment that read, "I can confirm that this was AWESOME!"
I can confirm that this was AWESOME!
— Jack Fischer (@Astro2fish) July 26, 2021
Snopes also contacted NASA for more information about Fischer's career in space and was told that the Colorado native indeed participated in a spacewalk shown in the included video.
"I can verify is that Jack Fischer was a NASA astronaut who served as flight engineer for Expeditions 51 and 52 to the ISS from April to September 2017," NASA Chief Historian Brian Odom told Snopes in an email. "He conducted a spacewalk at ISS on May 12, 2017."
Odom referred our newsroom to Fischer's NASA biography, which also confirmed that the astronaut concluded 136 days aboard ISS on Sept. 3, 2017, during which point he participated in two spacewalks, according to his NASA profile. One spacewalk occurred on May 12, 2017, and the video was live-streamed. A second spacewalk occurred on May 23, 2017.
Snopes cross-referenced the footage against another clip posted to YouTube by NASA Johnson Space Center, a Houston, Texas hub, on Aug. 28, 2017. The video was described as:
A little more than 200 people have ever actually made a spacewalk, and the rest of us have to wonder what it's like—maybe this will help! In May 2017 NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer each wore a small high definition video camera during a spacewalk on the International Space Station; here, for the first time ever, we've cut together those video streams and added the space to ground audio so you can go out on the EVA with the astronauts and get a sense of what it's like to be your own little spaceship.
Both of the videos published to X and on YouTube shared several similar characteristics, including the tools used, similar views of Earth, and characteristics of the space suit (such as two white strips seen on Fischer's thighs).