On Wednesday, the Artemis II spacecraft launched out of Florida. It marks the first time since the 70s that a crewed mission has headed toward the moon, and after a deluge of billionaires leaving the Earth but unfortunately coming back, it’s nice for all us regular people to get excited about doing cool shit in space again.
So far, things on Artemis seem to be going to plan, but there’s been a few hiccups. On Thursday morning, Commander Reid Wiseman was apparently having a problem with connectivity on his Microsoft Surface Pro and asked NASA tech support to take a look, noting that he had “two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working.” It’s unfortunate to learn that space isn’t far enough to escape 1) Microsoft, and 2) sending emails, both things I frequently fail to escape on Earth.
right now the astronauts are calling houston because the computer on the spaceship is running two instances of microsoft outlook and they can't figure out why. nasa is about to remote into the computer
— niki grayson (@nikigrayson.com) 2026-04-02T06:06:53.835Z
Want to know some facts about emailing in space that I learned because this situation got me thinking about emailing in space? The first email from space was sent in 1991 via AppleLink and basically said “hello from space, too bad you aren’t also in space.” (The full message, by astronauts Shannon Lucid and James C. Adamson from spacecraft Atlantis, read, “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here,...send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby,...we'll be back!”) In 2014, NASA emailed plans for a 3D printed wrench to the ISS, the first time a tool was, technically speaking, emailed to space. The first tweet from space (as opposed to being sent to Earth and then posted) was sent in 2010.
In news related to, like emailing, other unfortunate requirements of being human, Artemis also had a little bit of toilet trouble, with one of its toilets jamming before being resolved. Of the 10 toilets currently in space (a number that can be quantified, unlike toilets on Earth), this isn’t a bad failure rate, and it seems like toilet problems aren’t uncommon in space.
What I love about all this is how it makes me reconsider space travel, a concept I tend to take a bit for granted as someone born after the moon landing. (Another fun fact I learned: during the Apollo 11 flight, astronaut Michael Collins took a photo that includes everyone in the entire world except him.) In a world of space influencers (cool) and the endless bullshit that spews from Elon Musk (embarrassing), it can be easy for me to see “doing shit in space” as just something humans do, but it is objectively mind-blowing that we can leave the Earth, the place where (almost) everything in human history has happened. According to “How Many People Are In Space Right Now,” both an amazing name and concept for a website and which is also an app in case you need to be able to check how many people are in space right now at a moment's notice, there are currently 14 people who are not on Earth, where you are, where all of us are except those 14 people, one of whom is nevertheless having Outlook problems, just like us.
If somehow you are reading this blog from space, please let me know.
