JSC

First off, let me make it clear up front so that there is no confusion: this is a project that I'm volunteering for.  I'm not getting paid to do it.  It is on my own time.  Second, it was written about in the news media months ago so this isn't breaking news.

Are we good? Good. So I'm on this project and I was chosen to be a part of the social media team. We're meeting in a couple of weeks, but before that happens we were given an assignment. I figured - it's the social media team, why not use social media as a way to do the assignment?

The assignment was for me to look at my social networking habits - Facebook, Twitter, etc, and look at what got me to the people/organizations/conversations that I participate in most often - what value do they bring to me? What makes them appealing?

I wanted to do something unique, educational and cathartic with NASATweetup, something I didn't tell a whole lot of people, even those who know what I do for a living. See, they say certain people live in a bubble - the President, athletes, celebrities and even astronauts. And you know what? Those of us who work in and around the space program do too.

We all live and breathe space; that much was obvious this week. For me, it's been in my blood since at least my 3rd birthday, which was the day Skylab 2 was launched and I watched on TV. It's also the "birthday" anniversary of the Apollo program, announced before Congress on May 25, 1961. So I had no choice anyway.

All through growing up, I knew where I would live; I decided it when I was 9 years old. Fortunately for me, I live here now on the Space Coast. It was a long, convoluted journey, but I suppose when your life has a built-in purpose, it matters less the road you take to get there than it does that you get there at all.

Whew!  The JSC Tweetup is over & I've finally had some time to sit down and collect my thoughts. 

It's been a very hectic week, from working STS-130 to the Tweetup to managing to squeeze in a few world domination discussions with @flyingjenny since she was at my house, there wasn't much time to stop and take it all in.

I'm very sorry that I couldn't participate on the tour, but such is life and being a Flight Controller for a few years now I've learned that you really can't plan anything, from vacations to family events to holidays to Tweetups, everything's on hold until wheel stop - and then there's another one!  

For now at least, there's another one.  A few other ones.  Even though I wasn't able to join the actual tour, I was able to attend the events the night before and the night of the Tweetup.  I was very excited to meet everyone who I've been talking to only virtually for almost a year now.  Finally, I get to show you what we do!  

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 -->

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-->)