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  • 2018-08-28 (xsd:date)
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  • Did a Twitter User Jeopardize Her NASA Internship by Insulting a Member of the National Space Council? (en)
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  • In August 2018, a screenshot purportedly showing an ill-fated exchange between a recently hired NASA intern and Homer Hickam, a member of the National Space Council that oversees NASA, was widely circulated on social media along with the claim that it resulted in Naomi's preemptive firing: These tweets, as well as the Twitter handle @NaomiH_Official, were deleted shortly after this exchange went viral, but a number of news outlets managed to archive them via screenshots. Hickam and Naomi have declined requests for comment from the media. So was this exchange real? Did Naomi really lose her internship after insulting a member of the National Space Council? Hickam, a former NASA engineer whose 1998 memoir Rocket Boys served as the basis for the movie October Sky, confirmed that the exchange was real on his web site. Hickam explained in the since-deleted blog post (an archived version can be seen here) that he didn't mean to get Naomi in trouble when he responded to her tweet, and that he has since reached out to NASA on her behalf. Hickam's post is reproduced in full below: It's unclear if Hickam was successful in getting Naomi a position at NASA. The Twitter account @NaomihOfficial, purportedly Naomi's new account, posted a message on 23 August 2018 expressing hope that she might get her internship back: A spokesperson for the NASA Johnson Space Center informed us that the Universities Space Research Association is responsible for administrating the internship program. While they couldn't comment on this specific incident, they did tell us that interns receive a manual which includes guidelines on how to behave on social media: (en)
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