Boldly Go... and Twitter It!

Well, it had to happen. As we reach for the stars, it is only natural to take our vices, addictions and foibles with us into the great unknown. Expedition 22 Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer got on Twitter from the International Space Station! That's right, he was twittering from space. First, Capital Hill and now the great unknown. We have truly arrived at the edges of technological silliness.

Until now, astronauts were restricted from Twitter for obvious reasons - they were just too far away to get on the Internet. So, if they wanted to send a Twitter message, they had to relay it to someone on Earth who would then post it. It would be e-mailed to support personnel who then transferred it manually to the astronaut's Twitter account. That is no longer necessary.

Just like John Glenn's famous words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." became a phrase recognized around the world and down through time, @Astro_TJ sent the first tweet directly back to Earth.

It went like this: "Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station - the 1st live tweet from Space!:) More soon, send your?s"

This was made possible by a new technology called Crew Support LAN which uses existing communications connections to and from the space station. It will give astronauts the access to surf the Internet and send private communications. It is all part of a program to improve the quality of the missions and help with issues associated with isolation on long missions.

Bureaucracy still holds true with this new form of communications as astronauts are government employees and as such subject to all the rules and regulations that entails. While they can send and receive email, use Internet telephone and a small amount of videoconferencing, they still need to maintain a level of professionalism.

When the Space Station is communicating at a high level, the crew can still have access remotely by logging into a ground computer and use the ground keyboard.



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