Robot Makes One Giant Leap for Twitter

The life of a NASA bot... in 140 characters or less

Your best friend, your boss and your grandma are already on Twitter, and now the revolution is complete. A NASA crew member is now updating the universe, and it's not even human.

We're talking about a new robot slated to head to the International Space Station this fall. (It kind of looks like The Rocketeer on steroids.) Eventually, the robot could help perform tasks that are too dangerous for mankind. But right now, it's embarking into a brave new world of cyberspace.

Here's its first tweet:

"Hello World! My name is Robonaut 2 -- R2 for short."

Please note: That's R2, not R2D2. This is NASA, not Star Wars.

A look at R2's Twitter feed shows that it is busy debunking other science fiction myths. R2 had to respond to one fan who wondered if he were related to Hal, the evil computer from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

"No, no relation to Hal," R2 tweeted. "Don't know if I'd want to admit to having him on my family tree if I was. Def. don't condone his actions."

R2 was also polite when responding to some invasive personal questions.

"Robots are non-gender by design," he answered one follower. "I'm an it."

You can follow his its updates yourself at http://twitter.com/AstroRobonaut.


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