Video does not show astronaut exposing 'fake' life in space

Published on June 20, 2025 at 20:39
4 min read
By Caleigh KEATING, AFP USA

Retired NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg regularly recorded videos as she floated while working on the International Space Station (ISS). Social media posts falsely claim she later revealed the agency fakes these scenes by filming in front of a green screen, but the clip shared as evidence features a different woman, as confirmed by the owner of the account where it originated.

"Former Astronaut Karen Nyberg Shows How NASA Fakes Space Flights.." a June 16, 2025 post on X claimed.

It shares a video of a woman in front of a space station-like backdrop watching a chip bag float away from her, side-by-side with the same footage being filmed in front of a green screen. A person in a green body suit is manipulating the bag.

The video garnered thousands of interactions in posts on X, Threads, Instagram and Facebook. The clip also circulated in posts making similar claims about Nyberg in French, Spanish and Italian.

Screenshot of an X post taken June 17, 2025

Nyberg is a retired NASA astronaut who completed two spaceflights during her career, including a 166-day stay on the ISS in 2013 (archived here).

But she is not the woman in the green screen video.

Comments on the post on X included links to previous debunks from USA Today and PolitiFact who named the woman in the video as Paige Windle. In the clip, a person off-camera is heard calling the woman Paige.

Windle is the founder of a lifestyle management company and the wife of David Weiss, known online as "Flat Earth Dave," the host of "The Flat Earth Podcast."

Contacted by AFP, Weiss confirmed Windle is the one on-camera. "This video never dies. It keeps coming back," Weiss said in a June 17 email.

The video was originally posted on Weiss's YouTube channel as part of a series titled "Globebusters," but made no mention of Nyberg (archived here).

"Someone took that clip and presented it as Karen Nyberg and it went viral a bunch of times and now it has started again," he said.

He said he has repeatedly addressed the false use of the video, sharing with AFP the cover image of a YouTube video he posted in response to the false viral claims (archived here).

Screenshot of a YouTube video thumbnail sent to AFP by David Weiss on June 16, 2025

Life in microgravity

Astronauts onboard the ISS experience microgravity, causing them and objects to float (archived here). At the altitude of the ISS, gravity is 90 percent of the total gravity one feels on Earth, but an absence of air resistance causes all objects in the ISS to fall at the same rate, producing a weightless appearance.

The ISS stays afloat because it moves at a speed that matches the curve of the Earth, causing it to "fall around" the planet while staying at roughly the same altitude. The moon's orbit works in a similar way.

NASA uses the ISS in part to study how extended time periods in microgravity and other conditions in space impact the human body as it prepares for future long-term missions in space.

On her website, Nyberg features a video she recorded on the ISS where she worked on a quilt (archived here). Unlike in the video filmed in front of the green screen, Nyberg's hair and necklace float throughout the clip due to the microgravity conditions.

AFP reached out to Nyberg's representative for comment, but a response was not forthcoming.

AFP has previously debunked claims that ISS astronauts faked a video from the station.

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