Tweet Your Way Into Mission Control

By Nancy Atkinson - January 22, 2010 at 2:51 PM UTC | Site News
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Listen up Space Tweeps: you can now Tweet your way to a personalized tour of Mission Control at Johnson Space Center during the upcoming STS-130 space shuttle mission. Well, personalized with 99 other Twitterers. NASA is hosting a unique Tweetup on Wednesday, Feb. 17 during Endeavour's STS-130 mission to the International Space Station. Endeavour is targeted to launch on Sunday, Feb. 7. NASA will randomly select 100 individuals on Twitter from a pool of registrants who

sign up on the Web.

An additional 50 registrants will be added to a waitlist. Registration opens at noon EST on Tuesday, Jan. 26, and closes at noon EST Wednesday, Jan. 27.

"We're excited to be hosting NASA's sixth Tweetup," said NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, who also is known as @astro_Mike. "This is the home of all of the astronauts and the historic Mission Control Center. It's an outstanding location to provide our Twitter community with an insider's view of human spaceflight. I'll be on one of the two mission control teams working at that time to keep Endeavour and space station operating safely. Hopefully a few of my Twitter followers can participate in this exciting event."

The event will provide NASA Twitter followers with the opportunity to take a tour of Johnson; view mission control and astronauts' training facilities; and speak with flight directors, trainers, astronauts and managers. The Tweetup will include a "meet and greet" session to allow participants to mingle with fellow Tweeps and the staff behind the tweets on @NASA.

For more information about the Tweetup and to sign up, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup

And if you don't make it into the Tweetup, just follow the members of the Space Tweep Society on Twitter. They'll tell you everything you need to know. And of course, so will I, so follow

me on Twitter, too

, and be sure to check Universe Today for lots of coverage of the STS-130 mission, as I'll be live from Kennedy Space Center.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com