NASA Social – Astronaut Joseph Acaba

I was lucky to be invited to attend an event by NASA Social: “a program to provide opportunities for NASA’s social media followers to learn and share information about NASA’s missions, people, and programs. NASA Social is the next evolution in the agency’s social media efforts.”

On December 4th I had the opportunity along with others to meet Space Station Astronaut Joe Acaba, @AstroAcaba.  The event was at the NASA Headquarters.

I was finishing this book: *Packing for Mars* by Mary Roach during the week of the NASA Social event and I had so many questions I wanted to ask Astronaut Acaba, yet when the moment arrived to ask a question (in Spanish) I went directly to the food topic “What traditional Puerto Rican dish would you like to see added to the NASA menu for space?”  I was so nervous I spoke too quickly in Spanish and totally forgot  Astronaout Acaba said that his Spanish isn’t too advanced.  I went back and asked a bit slower this time, still shaky, avoiding to look at the camera or tv, I can’t stand to be in front of cameras so I was trying to forget that this was Live.

The NASA fan community is very open, polite and most of the folks I met before, during and after the event were always happy to share stories, knowledge, websites, even tips to obtain freebie stuff, also @Nutzareus gave me a pin, a really cool one.

It was funny when I arrived to the Gift Store because I thought: “Darn it! I took a pledge, not unnecessary shopping” But then everyone pointed me towards the *freebies room* Oh my god, I got a comics book, pins, stickers, and tons of Mars Rover Mission material.

The event was very well organized.  We did our line, took our badges and goodies, we already knew the twitter handles, new where we could charge our devices, hashtags and wireless connection information.  It went so smooth, the astronaut arrived, everyone took pictures with him, and no I didn’t take a picture with him.  I’m not shy but I just didn’t want everyone to stare, ha.

I have so much respect for astronauts, for some reason I would always think they had a glamorous life, but then the more you learn about their lives, the sacrifices they make, the tests they have to pass, the conditions they have to live in, physical work, risks they take, it just makes you put things in perspective.  I’ll tell you this, the more I learn about astronauts and their life on space, the more I appreciate earth and gravity.