1st Tweet from Space

On the 22^nd of January in 2010, TJ Creamer had the honor of monumentally Tweeting from the International Space Station for the first time in history.

Before 2010, astronauts would email ground support personnel and arrange for tweets to be posted for them on their behalf. At that time according to NASA, the ISS only had “official e-mail, Internet Protocol telephone and limited videoconferencing capabilities”. However, on January 22, 2010, the International Space Station was given a special software upgrade — the ability for astronauts to personally use the Internet, which enabled them to send tweets and participate on other social media on their own.

Today, astronauts who are currently aboard the ISS often tweet from space, sharing their experiences and keeping us up-to-date on their daily activities, which only proves furthermore how important communication is for science, both for the future and for the past.

The technology we use to monitor our planet is beneficial to our understanding of it, affecting all of our lives by showing us things we by ourselves cannot see. Even though we may not be able to see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist and don’t pose a threat to the planet we’ve spent so long researching – we have the tools to create change, we only need determination to make that dream a reality.