AirSpaceMag.com

Twitpic photo: Astro_Clay

Maybe it’s the advent of Twitter and Facebook. Maybe it’s because there are only a few space shuttle flights left. But 50 years into the space age, NASA astronauts seem to be loosening up in the way they present themselves to the public.

Case in point: this photo posted on the Twitter page of Clayton Anderson, who’ll fly as a Mission Specialist on next month’s STS-131 mission. Presumably that’s Anderson’s wife wishing her husband well before a practice spacewalk. The picture doesn’t appear on NASA’s STS-131 photo page. Can anyone else recall a photo of an astronaut kissing his/her spouse during training, even though that surely happens all the time? If so, let us know.