It?s one small click
for astronauts, but one giant leap for the Internet. Astronauts on the
International Space Station finally have a live Internet connection and made
their first direct Twitter post Friday to prove it.
?Hello Twitterverse!?
NASA astronaut Timothy ?T.J.? Creamer posted on his Twitter page as @Astro_TJ.
?We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space!
:) More soon, send your ?s.?
Astronauts have used Twitter
during space missions before. But those messages were relayed through Mission Control
and posted by a third party. Live Internet connections were not available due
to technical and security concerns, NASA officials said.
Now, space station
astronauts ? there are five of them in orbit today ? can post their Twitter
updates themselves, and they don?t have to stop there. They can surf the
Internet, just like folks on Earth, and ease the isolation of long months
flying 220 miles (354 km) above the planet.
?It?s mostly for
personal use,? NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com.
Creamer, who launched
to the space station in December, has been working with engineers on Earth
during his free time to load new software and tackle other technical glitches
to make the space station?s Internet access a reality.
Humphries said the space Internet
uses the station?s high-speed Ku-band antenna, so it is active whenever the
station has that connection. To surf the Web, astronauts can use a station
laptop to control a desktop computer on Earth. It is that ground computer that
has the physical connection to the Internet.
There are security
restrictions in place to protect the Internet portal, which NASA is calling the
Crew Support LAN (Local Access Network).
The International
Space Station is home to two Americans ? Creamer and fellow NASA astronaut
Jeff Williams ? as well as Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov
and Maxim Suraev, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
In addition to the
Internet portal, station crews can use an Internet Protocol phone to call their
families and friends on Earth, as well as set up video conferences every now
and then. Lately, station astronauts have used Twitter to keep the public
updated about their spaceflights and mission training.
Creamer, Williams (@Astro_Jeff) and Noguchi (@Astro_Soichi)
are all currently tweeting from the space station.
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