World Wide Web Becomes Universe Wide Web: Internet Reaches Space!

Oh, boy. Now we've gone and done it. Yes, we've taken the Internet where it has never gone before, and we guess the only logical "next step" is to plant a wireless router on Mars and let the extraterrestrial that live there start tweeting to us. Believe it or not, the World Wide Web is now completely inaccurate in terms of naming convention. It's more like the Universe Wide Web. This past week, an American astronaut sent the first actual tweet from space, proving that Internet access on the International Space Station was finally live.

NASA's own TJ Creamer had been working with flight controllers to establish the connection for the past little while (around a month), and he just now got everything working. His first tweet from outer space?

"Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s"

He has since admitted that kinks are still being worked out ("Hello All! Still working out some of the kinks, but net-surfing is a wonderful treat. MANY kudos to the team for overcoming the problems"), and that he'll begin answering questions from his outpost starting today ("Will start answering your questions soon -- a little later today -- and a LOT of questions there are! :) Thanks for all your interest!")


It's actually a pretty amazing feat. Before, US civilians were pretty detached to what happened under NASA's watch, and now--suddenly--anyone with a Twitter account can be put in touch with a real, live, on-mission astronaut. The wonders of the Internet never cease to amaze, but this one ranks pretty high up there for shock-and-awe value. You can follow CJ's Tweets here: http://twitter.com/astro_tj