#NASATweetup
There are really no words to describe what kind of day today was! It was awesome!
Today was Day 1 of the official NASA Tweetup event at Kennedy Space Center for STS-133. It was so great to meet so many new people and to put faces, voices, and real names with all the Tweeps I’ve followed.
The event started at 1pm in a tent at the KSC Press Site in the shadow of the GIANT Vehicle Assembly Building, right next to all the buildings and trucks the media uses to cover shuttle launches. All the Tweetup attendees gathered, began mingling and tweeting of course. There was welcome video from Astronaut Nicole Stott, who will be riding Discovery to space on Wednesday. We got a nice talk from Bill Gerstenmaier, the Associate Administrator of NASA about the future of NASA and its role in science and education. Astronaut Ron Garan took questions from the crowd with great excitement. Stephanie Stillson, Processing Flow Director of Discovery talked about what it’s like to work on a space ship everyday. Very cool! Jeff Goldman VP of Twitter spoke about his role with Twitter and how social media is really changing people’s experience for many things. He said some really great things about the merging of technology and social interaction and how it can really be used to inspire people.
Then the Tweeps split into two groups. The first group went to the KSC Press Briefing Room to get a demo of Robonaut 2. The real Robonaut will be launched on Discovery on Wednesday to be used in space for many research projects and other tasks. The other groups stayed in the tent to see a demo of the Advanced Crew Escape Suit, or ACES, the orange flight suit the astronauts wear during launch and landing. Then both groups switched, so we all got to see everything.
There was a mix up with the busses, so we had to change plans for touring KSC today. Some people had to leave already and were able to get a tour tonight. The rest, including me, will get a tour tomorrow.
All the tweeps gathered at the large countdown clock for a big group picture.
There will be more about todays events later when I can really sit down and think about it all. Plus tons of pictures!
Stay tuned for the best part, the LAUNCH on Wednesday Nov 3 at 15:52 EDT
