How Reid Wiseman Tweeted Through His Space Mission

An American, a Russian, and a German went on a space mission together. The story, which sounds the start of a corny joke, reached its conclusion Monday when Reid Wiseman, Maxim Suraev and Alexander Gerst landed safely back on Earth in Arkalyk, a city in the steppes of northern Kazakhstan.

Wiseman, a former test pilot for the U.S. Navy who was deployed to the Middle East multiple times before becoming a NASA astronaut, gave those restrained by gravity back home a window into space during the 165-day mission. He tweeted photos and shared brief Vine videos throughout his journey, taking crew selfies and rolling the camera as they had fun with weightless water, sometimes with a GoPro.

"I'm one of the first rookies to do a long-duration space flight, and I really wanted to share that," Wiseman told reporters in a post-landing interview televised by NASA. He wanted to share what it was like to be up in space and look down at Earth, what it's like to be weightless, he says. "I just wanted to tell that story from my point of view."

The mission included investigations in biology, physical science, and Earth and space science, such as "seedling growth, observation of meteors entering Earth's atmosphere and studies of animal biology and bone and muscle physiology," according to a NASA summary of Expedition 41. But it was Wiseman's continuous social media updates from his Twitter account @astro_reid and his eponymous Vine account that captured the most amount of interest from the public.

As of Monday, Wiseman had more than 365,000 followers on Twitter, with his posts regularly being re-tweeted and favorited hundreds and even thousands of times. Over the course of his mission, he shared a mix of crew photos that captured the planet in miniature; images of states, countries, and landmarks from space; time-lapse videos; and beautiful shots he labeled with the hashtag #EarthArt.

The other crew members aboard the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft, especially the German geophysicist-volcanologist Gerst, also shared experiences from the mission through social media.