What’s This?
2013-05-28 19:36:03 UTC
Chris Hadfield spoiled the Internet. For six months, all it took was a few clicks to find the Canadian astronaut’s nearly real-time photos of our planet from low-Earth orbit.
Now that Hadfield’s boots are back on Earth’s soil, there are big shoes to fill — 240 miles above us. On Tuesday, three astronauts will launch to the ISS in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Two of those crew members are already active on social media, and we can only hope they’ll feed our space addiction.
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano plans to provide daily updates on his blog and social accounts. He regularly tweets in both English and Italian from @Astro_Luca. Currently, that feed is a mix of original tweets and retweets from other astronauts and well-wishers.
Parmitano is also partnering up with aspiring teenage astronaut Abigail Harrison, who is known on the web as “Astronaut Abby.” The team plans to work together to make sure Parmitano’s blog posts are distributed while he’s in orbit.
“Commander Hadfield has done such amazing job of getting the public interested in the ISS, and we don’t want that to go away when he comes back down,” Harrison told Mashable in April. “Luca is going to carry on the flag.”
Also traveling on her second trip to the ISS is NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, who actively tweets from @AstroKarenN with personal updates and photos. So far, the socially savvy Nyberg has tweeted on a regular basis while preparing for her mission.
Nyberg also has a Pinterest account, which has the latest photos from her brief pre-launch stay in Russia. It would be refreshing to get a strong female perspective from space if she continues to post from the ISS.
What We Want From the Astronauts
Hadfield gave Earthlings a glimpse of the Earth that, in the past, we had to wait months after each mission to see. His daily tweet treats included landscapes like the swirling cinnamon-colored Richat structure in Mauritania, or the Antipodes Islands surrounded by an ocean that seemed too blue to be real.
However, it wasn’t just about the photos. While living on board the ISS, Hadfield became the unofficial spokesperson for exploration. He regularly hosted Google Hangouts to answer students’ questions, and his YouTube videos prompted thousands of “oh-my-god-that-is-awesome” comments. Suddenly, the masses thought space was hip again. We want it to stay that way.
“When I first flew to space, there was no social media [...] it was months before I could share my pictures,” Hadfield said in a Google Hangout last week. “The ability to share the experience real time has helped show why we even do this.”
What kind of information would you like the astronauts to tweet about from space? Tell us in the comments below.
BONUS: Chris Hadfield’s Photos From the ISS
Image courtesy of NASA
Topics: astronauts, Chris Hadfield, International Space Station, NASA, space, U.S., US & World, World
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