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Tag: NASA

  • NASA Adds New Features To Its Website

    NASA has introduced new features to its NASA.gov website in an effort to offer better navigation and make it easier for users share information on Facebook and Twitter.

     

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    The new features on NASA.gov include:

    *We added images to the ‘What are people interested in?’ box on the homepage.
       

     *We changed the navigation on the homepage multimedia box so that the options are clearer within each panel of the box.
       

    *We swapped the ‘Connect’ and ‘About NASA’ buttons in the top navigation bar to reduce confusion since we found several users intuitively saw ‘Connect’ and thought ‘Contact’ since the words are similar and that’s a more standard placement for contact information.
      

    *We pared down the ‘Share’ options at the top of pages from a list of hundreds to four-options which then expand out to the full list.
      

    * We tweaked the information we provide when you share our pages on Facebook so that it shows a image to illustrate each page and video.

    NASA also said it plans on updating its Twitter box on the homepage to make it easier to know where tweets are coming from. The agency is adding more Facebook and Digg integrations so users can "Like" its pages without sharing them on social networks. NASA said it will announce the improvements once they go live.

     

  • NASA Will Fly Your Face In Space

    NASA is inviting people to send photos of their faces into orbit aboard one of the final remaining space shuttle missions.

    Visitors to the "Face in Space" website can upload their picture to fly with the astronauts aboard shuttle Discovery’s STS-133 mission or Endeavour’s STS-134 mission. Participants will receive a special certificates from the Face in Space website once the mission is over.

    "The Space Shuttle Program belongs to the public, and we are excited when we can provide an opportunity for people to share the adventure of our missions," said Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon.

    NASA-Face-in-Space

    "This website will allow you to be a part of history and participate as we complete our final missions."

    Anyone without a picture can skip the image upload option, and NASA will fly their name.

    Discovery and Endeavour’s missions are the final two flights remaining until the retirement of the space shuttle fleet. They are targeted to launch in September and November, respectively.
     

     

  • NASA To Hold Tweetup At The World Science Festival

    NASA and the World Science Festival said today they are inviting Twitter followers to a behind-the-scenes Tweetup at 2 p.m. EDT on Saturday, June 5, in New York City.

    The event will bring together 100 Twitter users with some of the world’s brightest scientific minds.

    Tweetup attendees will have the opportunity to speak with festival co-founder Brian Greene, Nobel-prize winning NASA astrophysicist John C. Mather, and astronaut Leland Melvin, known as @Astro_Flow on Twitter.

    NASA-Tweetup-New-York

    Registration is open from 10 a.m. EDT, Friday, May 21, to 10 a.m., Monday, May 24. NASA and the World Science Festival will randomly select 100 participants from Web registrants. Additional applicants will be placed on a waiting list.

    The Tweetup is just one of 40 special programs scheduled during the third annual World Science Festival, which runs from June 2-6. The Tweetup also will include a social session for participants to mingle with fellow tweeps and the staff behind the tweets on @NASA and @WorldSciFest.
     

     

  • NASA Invites Twitter Followers To Space Center In Houston

    NASA is offering its Twitter followers a chance to personally get an up close look of a space shuttle mission at the agency’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston.

    NASA is hosting a Tweetup on Wednesday, May 19 during Atlantis’ STS-132 mission to the International Space Station. Atlantis will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, May 14 at 1:20 p.m. CST.

    "We’re inviting the public to share in the excitement of human spaceflight during one of the last three scheduled space shuttle missions," said Stephanie Schierholz, social media manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

    NASA-Tweetup "NASA is providing this behind-the-scenes access to give our Twitter followers an understanding and appreciation of all the work that goes into a successful shuttle launch and mission."

    NASA randomly selected 100 individuals on Twitter from a pool of registrants who signed up on the Web. The event will start at Space Center Houston (SCH) where participants will have the opportunity to meet astronaut Jeff Williams (@Astro_Jeff) and tweet about NASA hardware. 

    After lunch, Twitter followers will take a tour of JSC; view mission control and astronauts’ training facilities; and speak with flight directors, trainers, astronauts and managers.
     

  • NASA Invites Twitter Users To Next Shuttle Launch

    During the next space shuttle mission, NASA will host two Tweetups to give people an up close look at the space program.

    For the second time, NASA Twitter followers are invited to a view a shuttle launch in person at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA is hosting the Tweetup May 13-14. Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch at 2:19 p.m. EDT, May 14 on its mission to the International Space Station.

    Once the mission has launched, NASA will host an additional Tweetup at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston that will offer a different view of mission operations.

    NASATweetup

    "We’re inviting the public to share in the excitement of human spaceflight during one of the last three scheduled space shuttle missions," said Stephanie Schierholz, social media manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

    "NASA is providing this behind-the-scenes access to give our Twitter followers an understanding and appreciation of all the work that goes into a successful shuttle launch and mission."

    For the launch Tweetup May 13-14, NASA will randomly select 150 people from those who sign up on the Web. Registration opens at 10 a.m. on Monday, April 19, and closes at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 20.
     

     

  • NASA Connects Twitter Users To Space Shuttle Crew

    NASA is inviting the public to send questions for its astronauts via Twitter during the space shuttle Endeavour’s upcoming mission to the International Space Station.

    Astronaut Mike Massimino will take questions for the crew from the public via his Twitter account until Thursday, February 11. Massimino will be a spacecraft communicator, at NASA’s Mission Control in Huston during Endeavour’s flight, scheduled for launch February 7.

    NASA-Twitter

    At 2:24 a.m. CST on February 11, Massimino will host the event with the crew from his console in Mission Control. He will ask the astronauts as many submitted and live questions as possible during the 20-minute time period. The shuttle will be docked to the station during the live question and answer session. The event with Endeavour’s crew will be broadcast live online and NASA Television.

    The public can start tweeting questions for the Endeavour’s crew today to Massimino’s Twitter account, @Astro_Mike, or add the hashtag  #askastro to their tweets.

    The time and day of the Twitter session are subject to change due to mission priorities.
     

     

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  • NASA Astronaut Sends First Real Tweet From Space

    NASA said today astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have received a special software upgrade that allows access to the Internet and the World Wide Web via the "ultimate wireless connection."

    Expedition 22 Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer made first use of the new system Friday, when he posted the first unassisted update to his Twitter account, @Astro-TJ, from the space station. Previous tweets from space had to be emailed to the ground where support personnel posted them to the astronaut’s Twitter account.

    NASA-Twitter

    The personal web access, called the Crew Support LAN, uses existing communication links to and from the station and gives astronauts the ability to browse and surf the web.

    When the station is actively communicating with the ground using high-speed Ku-band communications, the crew will have remote access to the Internet via a ground computer. The crew will view the desktop of the ground computer using an onboard laptop and interact remotely with their keyboard touchpad.
     

     

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