NASA's first live tweet-up between the public and astronauts
in space was cut short Wednesday by a false alarm on the International Space
Station.
The station's two resident
Twitterers - Nicole Stott and Jeff Williams - were mid-way through a live
interview with a group of their Twitter followers gathered at NASA Headquarters
in Washington, D.C., when they were interrupted by a loud beeping.
"Excuse us just a second," Williams said as he and
Stott scrambled to check their consoles to investigate the source of the alarm.
Soon after, the station passed out of communications range with ground
stations, ending the live video link with the two astronauts.
The alert came from a smoke alarm in the station's
Russian-built service module, but there was no actual cause for concern, NASA
spokesperson Rob Navias said.
"It was a false alarm," Navias told SPACE.com.
The astronauts had been answering questions posed by members
of the public gathered for NASA's first ever tweetup - a meeting of Twitter
followers - from space. Current and former astronauts also answered
questions from Earth while waiting for the Earth-to-space video hookup.
Over a million people follow one of NASA's
accounts on the microblogging site.
Williams and Stott both use the site to share snippets of
what life is like in space. Williams writes as "Astro_Jeff," while
Stott posts under the name "Astro_Nicole."
"I think we've shown here in the recent past that Twitter
is an effective way to get the word out about what we're doing," Williams
said today during the event.
More fun for Twitter fans is coming up,
when NASA plans to give 100 tweeps a tour of its Kennedy Space Center in Cape
Canaveral, Fla., and a chance to watch the planned space shuttle launch on Nov.
12.
Life in space
The tweetup was a chance for people to ask about some of the
ins and outs of life in space. A young woman named Sarah asked if there was
anything about living on the space station that the astronauts hadn't prepared
or trained for.
"Something you can't train for is how your body is
going to react to the new environment," Stott said. "Getting used to
moving from one place to another without walking - just floating and pushing
off of surfaces... I think that has been a really cool part of this whole
experience."
A teacher from Rochester, New York, said his students wanted
to know why they choose to be astronauts, given the risk.
"I wouldn't do this if I didn't think it was
[important]," Stott said. "I have a family at home, I have a young
son. I truly believe that what we're doing up here is opening up new opportunities
for him as well as for the rest of the world."
After the spaceflyers were cut off by the false alarm, NASA
transitioned the event to the ground, where people could ask questions of
astronaut Michael Fincke, who recently returned from a long-duration stint on
the space station, as well as former astronaut Tom Jones.
Jones said the alarm wasn't all that uncommon, but that the
astronauts still needed to diligently check it out.
"Every couple of days you're going to get something like
that," he said, when a sensor reads a slightly higher or lower than
expected level of cabin pressure, instrument voltage, or something similar.
NASA capped off the event by playing the song
"Stargirl" by McFly, which NASA spokesman John Yembrick said many
Twitter followers requested they play on the space station, because its
space-related lyrics are so fitting.
"This is dedicated to all of our McFly fans that are
following us at NASA," Yembrick said.
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