Star Trek Cast Members Tweet With Real Astronaut (In a Red Shirt)

Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut living for six months on the International space station, engaged two generations of Star Trek actors in a hilarious Twitter conversation. After tweeting a photo of the Sahara Desert taken from orbit, Commander Hadfield received a message from fellow Canadian William Shatner. "@Cmdr_Hadfield Are you tweeting from space? MBB," Shatner asked, to which Hadfield responded, "@WilliamShatner Yes, Standard Orbit, Captain. And we're detecting signs of life on the surface." That clever retort could have been the end of it, but while Twitter users were enjoying just that little bit, George Takei posted about the conversation on Facebook, prompting Hadfield to call for a science officer. "With @GeorgeTakei posting about our space comms, all we need is @TheRealNimoy to beam in and we'd have an away team!" tweeted Hadfield. And beam in Nimoy did, with a simple "LLAP" ("live long and prosper"). "I am not Spock either, but living and working in this spaceship comes pretty close. Life mirrors art. LLAP, @TheRealNimoy," Hadfield responded. And then Star Trek: The Next Generation's Wil Wheaton got involved, tweeting, "@Cmdr_Hadfield If you get into trouble with Nanites while you're in orbit, I know a guy who can help you contain them. He has experience." Hadfield: "@wilw Wesley, we've talked about you being on the bridge. I believe you're needed in Engineering." At which point, because the conversation couldn't get any more awesome or geeky, Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, chimed in: "@Cmdr_Hadfield @WilliamShatner Neil & I would've tweeted from the moon if we could have but I would prefer to tweet from Mars. Maybe by 2040." Hadfield capped it all off the next day when, posting the picture seen above, he admitted, "I'm proud of being Canadian, but after yesterday's twitter conversation am starting to question wearing this red shirt." Who can blame him?