{"id":578472,"date":"2026-04-03T00:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/578472\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T00:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:42:10","slug":"nasa-astronauts-prove-that-sending-an-email-really-is-rocket-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/578472\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA astronauts prove that sending an email really is rocket science"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before the Orion spacecraft even launched on Wednesday, NASA\u2019s Artemis II moon mission \u2014 the first in 50 years \u2014 had already weathered a storm of complex challenges, like hydrogen and helium leaks<\/a>, a faulty heat shield<\/a>, and technical issues<\/a> with its safety system. Now in space, these four brave astronauts face their most formidable obstacle yet: Microsoft Outlook.<\/p>\n

In the first of their 10 planned days in space, Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman was having trouble using Microsoft Outlook, so he contacted Mission Control for tech support, according to the livestream of launch communications<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At first, Wiseman was having issues related to Optimus software, but then he flagged a more pedestrian concern: There were two instances of Outlook running on his personal computing device, or PCD \u2014 a Microsoft Surface Pro, per NASA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working. If you want to remote in and check Optimus and those two Outlooks, that would be awesome,\u201d Wiseman said.<\/p>\n

Soon after Wiseman reported the issue, Mission Control brought the astronaut some good news.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to let Reid know we are done remoting into his PCD 1,\u201d the person at Mission Control said. \u201cWe were able to resolve the issue for Optimus, and for Outlook, we were able to get it open. It will show offline, which is expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

What are astronauts even emailing about, anyway? Isn\u2019t being in space reason enough to set an out-of-office response? <\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t the only earthly trial the astronauts faced. Soon after takeoff, their toilet malfunctioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe toilet fan is reported to be jammed,\u201d NASA spokesperson Gary Jordan said, according to a transcription from Space.com<\/a>. \u201cNow the ground teams are coming up with instructions on how to get into the fan and clear that area to revive the toilet for the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

They did have \u201cbackup waste management capabilities,\u201d according to Jordan, which is a relief. Worst-case scenario, these astronauts would not have to live amongst floating fecal matter or anything (this is not a hypothetical concern<\/a>). But nevertheless, our country\u2019s foremost aerospace engineers managed to fix the toilet trouble, as well as Microsoft Outlook. And if they can manage that, they can surely circumnavigate the moon.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d ask NASA\u2019s Mission Control if they could help me with my own Outlook woes, but they are probably a bit busy.<\/p>\n

Neither NASA nor Microsoft responded to TechCrunch\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the Orion spacecraft even launched on Wednesday, NASA\u2019s Artemis II moon mission \u2014 the first in 50…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[58777,49,48,307,10214,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-578472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-artemis-ii","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-nasa","12":"tag-outlook","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}