NASA Goes Live from Orbit: A New Era of Space Outreach

If you thought watching astronauts float through the International Space Station (ISS) was only for the news or the occasional YouTube highlight, think again. On February 12, 2025, NASA cracked open a fresh chapter in space storytelling by hosting its very first live Twitch stream directly from the ISS. The show kicked off at 11:45 a.m. EST, and, for the first time, anyone with a Twitch account could chat with astronauts in real-time as they orbited high above the Earth.

The livestream brought together Don Pettit, currently circling the planet aboard the station, and Matt Dominick, who had just wrapped up his tour with NASA’s Crew-8 mission and returned home. Instead of a polished press conference, viewers got an unfiltered look at space life. The chat buzzed with questions—what's dinner like in zero gravity? How do you keep up daily routines when you’re stuck in a floating laboratory? What wild experiments are you running up there?

Bridging Space and Streaming Culture

This wasn’t just a publicity stunt. Brittany Brown, head of NASA’s Office of Communications Digital and Technology Division, made it clear: NASA is investing in Twitch as a way to bust through the usual boundaries of science outreach. For years, space agencies stuck to TV explainer specials or static websites. Now, with gaming and streaming communities growing huge audiences, NASA is bringing its message straight into digital culture. And it plans to stick around, promising regular Twitch-exclusive content—think more Q&A streams, deep dives on science topics, even behind-the-scenes looks at upcoming missions.

The content didn’t shy away from the nitty-gritty. Pettit and Dominick, both known for their jaw-dropping astrophotography, traded stories about the unique challenges and surprises of living in microgravity. They unpacked the science of daily living—from how water behaves in orbit, to the ways experiments can play out differently when there's barely any gravity pinning you down. There was also plenty on citizen science, the growing trend of letting everyday people participate in research, whether by contributing data or brainstorming solutions with space pros.

This Twitch debut was more than just an interstellar AMA—it’s NASA’s clearest signal yet that it will go wherever people are already hanging out online. The hope? To spark curiosity about space exploration among people who may never have tuned in before. Spacesuit selfies, space burritos, and real-time questions from gamers—it’s a new kind of outreach, beamed straight from low Earth orbit.