Space Tweep Society

Spacehacks Playing Astronaut

by @Pillownaut on Sep 14, 2011 • No Comments

With the passion for manned spaceflight in continual flux, with the Hubble’s replacement in danger of outright cancellation, and decreasing budgets for even robotic or orbital missions, it would be all too easy to become discouraged by space program withdrawal.

The most powerful thing we can do is spread the word. Tweet! And tweet some more! Put space articles on your Facebook wall. Support projects that invite the public to join their efforts, such as NASA studies or organizations like SPACEHACK, the directory of ways to participate in Space Exploration.

In the coming era, it may very well be all the work we do on the GROUND that gets us more fully into space again, so make an effort as SpaceTweeps to support the projects that support the space program! Through their growth, we spread the word and find strength in numbers. Congress can’t ignore this forever.

Some listings are competitions for prizes, others pay actual wages; some are for students and/or entire classrooms as projects, others for amateur and professional astronomers… and still others are simply ways to gather information to contribute to scientific research.

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YouTube - NASA Study Vertical Treadmill

The highest paying gig in there are the NASA bedrest studies, aka the Flight Analog Program. They develop 2-3 new Spaceflight Simulations per year, requiring people to visit a special NASA facility and … well, pretty much lie around while getting paid $160 per day most of the time! No joke. Although – one of the newer programs is a bit more strenuous than usual, as they are testing a version of the Space Station’s “Colbert” treadmill…

Also check out some articles about how NASA programs help real world citizens, such as the rehab facility now offering NASA-developed anti-gravity treadmill for therapy. The ultimate spinoff! Space station exercise? Now also a medical tool for healing and/or physical conditioning.

Sci-fi / Space History / Space Tourism / Space Tweeps

Maps for Space Road Trips!

by @Pillownaut on May 11, 2011 • 6 Comments

Hey, fellow Space Tweeps! Is everyone having fun getting ready for the upcoming Tweetups in FL, ALand CA? I’ll be so happy to meet more of you all at the Jet Propulsion Lab in June, and at the final launch… whenever that turns out to be.

In the meantime, I wanted to share my space maps with any road-trippers out there. If you’re anything like me, the first hint of sunshine means I go seeking space agency branches, space museums, Apollo moon trees, space novelties and themed restaurants… well, pretty much anything I can find!

Click here to see this map of all world space agencies, along with a listing of all 220+ branches across all the continents! Except that one overrun by penguins

My space maps have been developing over the past year as I added more sites to each; in addition to all the official government programs, I have also documented checklists of space crafts from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Shuttle Programs – including the intended homes of Atlantis, Endeavour and Discovery.

Another set of markers that might be helpful to travelers this summer is the map of Space Museums all over the world! Some have observatories or planetariums connected to them, so I hope to map all the additional planetariums next. This set of lists also includes Inns, Restaurants and other space novelties… plus a few Star Trek and Firely easter eggs for good measure.

Don’t be shy about contacting me in the comments section here, or on my Pillow Astronaut blog if you know of other sites I should add!

Space Exploration / Space History / Space Humor

Can We Reach The Moon By The Year 2000?

by @Pillownaut on Mar 22, 2010 • No Comments

Has everyone heard about the POPSCI archives by now ? Popular Science put ALL their publications from the past 137 years online, free of charge! I’ve read hundreds of wonderful articles, all the way back to 1872, and blogged about I thought were historically interesting…

So far, my favorite was printed in May of 1958, just as the space race was really heating up! Dr. Israel Monroe Levitt (1908-2004) wrote a fascinating account of how America might plan and execute the monumental lunar landing… by the year 2000. Wow, we beat that by 31 years! It’s a real eye-opener to see what the bright minds of the mid-20th century thought of potential space exploration.

“Manned flight cannot be initiated in the immediate future. A tremendous volume of preliminary work must be completed first. Before we can think of landing on the moon, it will be necessary to establish a manned space station circling the Earth as a base of operations.”

Yeah, not so much.

Read more at the Popular Science archives or at Pillow Astronaut, where I’ve highlighted numerous space articles throughout various eras.

Events / Johnson Space Center / NASA / NASATweetup / Space Tweep Society / Space Tweeps / Tweetups

#NASATweetup!

by @Pillownaut on Feb 18, 2010 • No Comments

STS-130 NASA Tweetup got a message from ISS Expedition 22crew, met an astronaut and king of the flight controllers, watched live comm from Shuttle Mission Control and cruised astronaut training facilities, even seeing new AsCans hard at work!

adllewellyn, pillownaut, spasmunkey & aggieastronaut
in the BlastOff Theatre at Space Center Houston

Meeting so many folks from the Tweep Society, Facebook and Myspace was incredible. I’ll be adding pictures and videos to my blog and youtube channel over the next few days and my link is: http://pillownaut.blogspot.com/

I hope other Tweeps will do the same. I’m so grateful for this site for bringing folks together; it gave me information to search out people by name so we can revel in our shared space interests! Cont’d –>

If anyone missed it on the Twitter feeds directly, we were on Click2Houston TV and here is the TwitPic gallery from the JSC professional photographer.

Education & Public Outreach / Events / Johnson Space Center / NASA / NASATweetup / Space Tweeps / Tweetups / Twitter

STS-130 Tweetup in Houston

by @Pillownaut on Feb 10, 2010 • 3 Comments

I’m overjoyed to be attending the STS-130 Tweetup in Houston on February 17th! Hoping to meet other SpaceTweeps there.

We’ll be gathering on the 10th day of the mission, whereby Shuttle Endeavour will have been docked for about a week. At this juncture, astronauts Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken will have already conducted two spacewalks to install the new Tranquility node.

If all goes according to the mission plan, we’ll be tweeting live from Johnson Space Center around the time they are outfitting the seven-windowed panoramic Cupola. (Cont’d–>)

The schedule is pretty packed, and I’m especially excited to see Astronaut Robert Satcher on the speaking docket! Bobby S. was the first orthopedic surgeon in space, just this past November on STS-129… so he’s fresh off a mission and probably quite keen to give presentations about his first trip into space.

On Earth, the “Zero-G M.D.” (catchy, huh?) has a background in Musculo-skeletal specialties; he is also now becoming involved in micro-gravity studies, and one of his own latest tweets shows the vertical treadmill used in one of the many NASA research studies.

If anyone has questions to ask an astronaut or JSC official, comment or tweet it! For those not traveling there, I’d love to report back on the events, and for those also attending, can’t wait to make your acquaintance!