NASA Invites 150 Lucky Twitter Followers To Endeavour Launch

WASHINGTON -- NASA invited 150 lucky people to a behind-the-scenes
perspective from the press site at the agency's Kennedy Space Center
in Florida for the final launch of space shuttle Endeavour on Friday,
April 29. The launch is scheduled for 3:47 p.m. EDT.

The participants were selected randomly from more than 4,100 online
registrants during a 24-hour opportunity in mid-March. Attendees
represent 43 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Australia,
Brazil, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Switzerland,
Venezuela, and the U.K. Participants will share their experiences
with their more than 3.7 million combined followers through the
social networking site Twitter. On Sunday, the agency surpassed one
million followers on its flagship Twitter account, @NASA.

Beginning at noon on April 28, NASA will broadcast a portion of the
Tweetup when participants get to talk with NASA's Chief Scientist
Waleed Abdalati; Endeavour's Flow Director Dana M. Hutcherson;
International Space Station Associate Program Scientist Tara Ruttley;
astronaut Clay Anderson; and Principal Investigator of the Alpha
Magnetic Spectrometer-2, Sam Ting. To watch the broadcast, visit:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasatelevision

Participants also will tour Kennedy and get a spacesuit demonstration.
The Tweetup culminates with the launch.

Reporters who are credentialed to cover the launch also may cover the
NASA Tweetup at Kennedy's press site. Reporters interested in
interviewing Tweetup attendees in advance should contact Stephanie
Schierholz at 202-358-1100 or stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov.

This is the fourth time NASA has invited its Twitter followers to
experience a space shuttle launch. Previously, groups attended
Atlantis' STS-129 and STS-132 missions and Discovery's STS-133
launch. NASA also hosts Tweetup events at other NASA centers.

Registration for an event June 6 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif., will open at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, April 26, for 24
hours at:

http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup

To follow the Tweetup participants on Twitter as they experience the
prelaunch events and shuttle liftoff, follow the #NASATweetup hashtag
and the list of attendees at:

http://twitter.com/nasatweetup/sts-134-launch

To connect with NASA on Twitter and other social networking sites, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/connect

For more information about space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

Source: NASA

---