Some Dutch Astronaut Accidentally Called 9-1-1 From Space - You Can Make Normal Phone Calls From Space?
Dutch astronaut has described how he accidentally contacted American emergency services on 911 while in orbit above the Earth.
André Kuipers described the experience while speaking on a radio program about his missions and communications between the Earth, satellites and astronauts orbiting the planet, according to the country’s public broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting. Kuipers explained that while trying to contact NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, he missed an all-important number and accidentally called the U.S. emergency services.
The 60-year-old said that to reach the center in Houston, orbiting astronauts have to dial 9 for an outside line, followed by 011 for an international line. But of course, doing so while floating around in space is trickier than from a desk on Earth. “I made a mistake, and the next day I received an email message: did you call 911?”
His comms slip-up set off a security alert at the Houston center, he explained, with emergency staff to check the room where the space station’s line connected to Earth. “I was a little disappointed that they had not come up,” he joked.
Hand up, I may not be well-versed with our technology in space, but how the hell are we making phone calls from space? I thought there was just a direct line to Houston where the Space Center is. Nope, apparently you can call in a pizza order if you so choose. I’m going to vent for a second, because I can. While attending Syracuse University I lived off-campus with my friends in a house during my junior and senior years. It was awesome, besides the fact that I had absolutely zero cell service when I was in the house. This is 2015 and 2016 and I had absolutely NOTHING while on planet Earth. Now I really have no one to blame but myself for being a poor and having Sprint as my carrier, but I feel like on a notable college campus where I’m paying $50,000 to go there per year needs to have cell towers for everyone. My mom couldn’t call me at all when I was home. If she was dying I wouldn’t know. Even worse, during my senior year when I was waiting to hear back from potential employers, I had no idea if a call was going to get through on my end. Sprint introduced Wifi-calling that year so there was a 25% it would go through. In hindsight I had wished my job acceptance call had been dropped because it led to the worst four months of my life doing cold calling, but of course it held strong that one time. Then again, I probably don’t end up here so that’s the butterfly effect I guess.
So apparently we’ve got people from OUTER SPACE making normal phone calls and accidentally dialing 9-1-1. How? Barstool Sports is an internet company and we frequently don’t have internet. I’m on my hotspot all the time because of how shitty the connection is. But we’ve got André Kuipers making calls from space. Sure thing, pal. The next time I can’t save a blog on this site I’ll just remember there’s a guy hundreds of miles from Earth calling in a pizza order.