NASA can take pictures of far-away nebulae, find ice on remote planets and send people up to orbit. But can it get Internet service to the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station?

In other words, can astronauts surf Facebook and write tweets from space?

In a recent Q&A with the crew of the Endeavor, which is speeding around the planet at 17,500 mph right now, PBS Newshour got an answer:

GREG JOHNSON: … As shuttle guys, we really don’t partake in the Internet. We’ve got synchronizations with our emails. It kind of gives us a pseudo-email or pseudo-Internet to communicate with our families and friends and our associates. However, I’m going to pass this to Ronnie because on the station, I believe that they have a better Internet than we do on the shuttle. RON GARAN: So this is something that is somewhat new is our capability to use the Internet. And how it works is we can be on a laptop here on the International Space Station and basically control remotely a PC or a computer down on the ground that is connected to the Internet. So it’s – we’re limited to when we have the correct communications coverage to be able to be on the Internet and there is some lag in it. So it does work slower than you’re probably used to on the ground. But it’s a very useful tool. And it really helps us to stay connected with what’s going on, on the Earth.

OK, I’ll admit that my question above about Twitter was a bit of a trick. Because yes, astronauts are really good at tweeting.

Today, for instance, Garan (Twitter handle: Astro_Ron) tweeted that astronaut Gregory Chamitoff (Twitter handle: Astro_Taz) was outside the space station on a spacewalk. And even posted a photo.

On Wednesday, Garan tweeted a photo of he and Russian cosmonaut Dmitry “Dima” Kondratyev helping the shuttle Endeavor dock with the International Space Station. On Tuesday, he tweeted a photo of one of the 16 moonsets he saw that day.

Garan is not the only astronaut who tweets. You can follow all of them through @NASA_Astronauts, which retweets a lot of their most interesting posts.

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