In Space, Anyone Can Hear You Tweet

In the olden days (by that I mean before this week), the astronauts had to email their tweets to someone at NASA who would then post them.  While he doesn’t exactly get points for originality, kudos to Creamer for using his new-found Internet powers to reach out to those of us miles below him for questions.

The real first tweet from space was made by astronaut Mike Massimino on Shuttle mission STS-125 to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, according to CNN:

The crew of the station will have access to the Web while the station is using its high-speed Ku-band link.  They will use a laptop on the station to access a remote desktop on the ground, which can be monitored by NASA.  The astronauts are subject to the same computer rules as government employees, so there will be no, um, funny business on the station. 

“The system will provide astronauts with direct private communications

to enhance their quality of life during long-duration missions by

helping to ease the isolation associated with life in a closed

environment,” NASA said in a statement.