It was a match made on Twitter, between William Shatner and Commander Chris Hadfield, between an incredulous Canadian who played television’s boldest space captain, and a completely credulous spaceman who’s due to become the first Canadian to command the International Space Station soon. But the two are ready to take their relationship off of Twitter and to an equally public space: a live-streamed conference call between the Earthbound actor who inspired so many real astronauts, and the astronaut who’s inspiring a lot of earthbound folks with his dedication to social media.
Cmdr. Hadfield has made a bit of a name for himself on the internet with his dedication to sharing life on the ISS with the rest of the world. He’s got a Tumblr account full of beautiful pictures of the surface of the Earth, taken from the ISS’ cupola; he’s active on Twitter and Facebook and even has his own YouTube account. Here’s him talking about the importance of social media not just to the future of the space program, but communicating the bigger picture of our planet to folks who can’t see the Earth the way astronauts do.
Tomorrow, however, Hadfield will be chatting live with one Earthling in particular. Hosted by Jeremy Hansen (also a Canadian astronaut), he and Shatner will chat about whatever actors and astronauts chat about, and it’ll be streamed live tomorrow around 10:30 am Eastern Standard Time. We will, of course, do our best to get such a historic moment up on the site for your viewing. It might be a small step for mankind, but, hey, fans of Star Trek are mankind too.
(via The Daily Dot.)
