Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, will talk to three astronauts living at the International Space Station (ISS), using Facebook Live. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) issued a statement announcing the news on May 27, 2016.
According to NASA, Zuckerberg is scheduled to make a video call lasting 20 minutes to the ISS, where he will speak to NASA astronauts Tim Kopra and Jeff Williams and European Space Agency's (ESA) astronaut Tim Peake. The head of one of the most popular social media sites in the world, Facebook, is to use his own company's platform, Facebook Live, for the iconic call. The new feature launched by Facebook enables users, as its name suggests, to broadcast videos and calls live.
NASA stated that the call is to take place at 12:55 p.m. EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) and will be broadcast live on NASA's Facebook page. It has also invited people across the world to write on its Facebook page any questions they have regarding the ISS or space that they would like to ask the astronauts.
During his call to the ISS, Zuckerberg would pose selected questions to the astronauts. NASA has put up a few sample questions on the page, like what the astronauts experience while living and working in microgravity while orbiting the Earth, what kind of research is conducted on the space station and how research in space helps them to transport human beings to Mars.
According to NASA, the ISS is the leading laboratory in the world for conducting research in microgravity, developing and testing space technology, and for sending robots, as well as humans to explore heavenly bodies like asteroids or Mars. Astronauts and space agencies from different parts of the globe collaborate on the ISS to make research such as the ones described possible.
