By Hayley Fick in 40 Acres , Special on October 9, 2013 at 8:44 am. At least that’s how it feels, with astronauts like University of Texas grad Karen Nyberg, MS ’96, PhD ’98, staying increasingly connected on social media during their missions. Nyberg, who has been working aboard the International Space Station since May, isn’t the first astronaut to embrace social media during a mission—Chris Hadfield’s “Space Oddity” music video comes to mind—but she is one of the most beloved.

Where does a mission to Mars begin? In this case, with a curious student at The University of Texas at Austin in professor Hans Mark’s “History of Spaceflight” class. Students and Mars Research Group members Ryan Witte and Susanne Plaisted, with group adviser professor Hans Mark. Research fellow Humboldt Mandell is also an adviser to the group.

When he’s not making science cool again Bobak Ferdowsi enjoys sci-fi and music festivals with his friends.

Extracurricular activities are an important part of college life, but students in the Satellite Design Lab are taking them to an extraterrestrial level. Inside the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Satellite Design Laboratory, you will find undergraduate and graduate students working on everything from designing software to building and testing hardware for satellites that actually get launched into space.

Instead of leaving him behind, new media fought for grandpa.

Karen Nybergis a mom, crafter, marathon-runner, engineer and astronaut. This May, she'll begin a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. It's hard to believe that just 15 years ago, she was agraduate studenthere at the Cockrell School of Engineering. Nyberg participates in a routine operations training session in an International Space Station mock-up/trainer in the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility at Johnson Space Center.

UT students gathered in the aerospace engineering building Wednesday night as Larry Price, Lockheed Martin’s Deputy Orion Program Manager, provided an inside view of the next generation of space flight. Lockheed Martin is NASA’s primary contractor for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the next national option for getting humans to space.

Many months of hard work have already been invested in turning the once fully-functional Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) into a Space Center Houston tram tour stop, but there are still a lot of important decisions to be made before its opening in Fall 2012. It may seem like a daunting task ensuring the safety of hundreds of future visitors and keeping the historical integrity of SAIL intact, but the team lead by Paul Miller is hard at work preparing the space for public access.

Takei channels his Star Trek character, Captain Sulu, in historic Mission Control during a tour of JSC. Johnson Space Center (JSC) welcomed actor and community activist George Takei to speak about leadership and inclusiveness in an inspiring and thought-provoking dialogue on May 29 in the Teague Auditorium.

For many Mac lovers around the world, the unthinkable has happened: a trojan virus has landed for OSX.

What started as an honest opinion by Longhorn safety Kenny Vaccaro ended up as a Twitter rally.