Getting Spaced on Twitter

As some of you may know, there's a "micro-blogging" website called Twitter that has been building momentum for the last few years. It's called micro-blogging because posts can only contain 140 characters or fewer.

Once dominated by geeks, like Leo Laporte (@LeoLaporte), it has grown with the adoption of "tweeting" by celebrities and news organizations, and in the recent election cycle when both the Obama and McCain campaigns posted updates to Twitter. It's worth noting that both have largely gone dormant since the election (@BarackObama has just 2 tweets leading up to the inauguration, @JohnMcCain has not posted since Oct 24).

Anyway, I mention this because Twitter not only gives you the opportunity to follow people, but also news organizations, radio shows (@GrandyandAndy is my favorite), and as it pertains to Kal in Space, select NASA/JPL programs.

NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab have 4 main twitter characters: The Mars Phoenix Lander (@MarsPhoenix), Cassini Spacecraft (@CassiniSaturn), Spirit and Oppy (@MarsRovers), and the new Mars Science Lab rover (@MarsScienceLab). I call them characters because the JPL did something unique with Mars Phoenix, in that it the person who provided the updates did them in first person. It was like Mars Phoenix had a personality that you could interact with. In fact, in June 2008 when it was first confirmed that there was in fact H2O ice on Mars, it was announced first on Twitter with this:

Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!

We who follow MarsPhoenix on twitter watched as the rover's mission got an extension when the rover miraculously regained enough power to continue a few months beyond the original projection.

The other twitter characters aren't written in the first person, but they do provide great updates on what is going on around Saturn and on Mars, and they frequently answer questions that are sent via twitter.

Check them out!

-Kal
(@KalMiller)