Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Before Orion’s launch on Wednesday, NASA’s Artemis II lunar mission – the first in 50 years – had overcome many challenges, such as. hydrogen and helium leakage, faulty heat shieldand technical issues and its protection. Now in space, these four intrepid professionals face their biggest obstacle: Microsoft Outlook.
During their first 10 scheduled days in space, Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman had trouble using Microsoft Outlook, so he contacted Mission Control for technical assistance, according to initial communication channels.
At first, Wiseman had problems with the Optimus program, but then he expressed the concerns of pedestrians: There were two instances of Outlook on his computer, or PCD – Microsoft Surface Pro, at NASA.
“I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of them is working. If you want to remotely look at Optimus and those two Outlooks, that would be amazing,” said Wiseman.
As soon as Wiseman reported the news, Mission Control brought the astronaut some good news.
“We wanted Reid to know that we were about to restart his PCD 1,” said the Mission Control man. “We were able to solve the problem with Optimus, and in Outlook, we were able to open it. It will show offline, which is expected.”
What do astronauts email each other about, anyway? Isn’t living in space reason enough to install an out-of-office solution?
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA
| |
October 13-15, 2026
This was not the only trial on Earth that astronauts faced. As soon as they left, their toilet malfunctioned.
“The toilet fan says it’s full,” NASA spokesman Gary Jordan, according to a sourced from Space.com. “Now the ground teams are coming up with instructions on how to get into the fan and clear the area to refresh the mission toilet.”
They had “trash backup,” according to Jordan, which is a relief. Worst of all, these astronauts don’t have to be in the middle of floating poop or anything (ie not an imaginary concern). However, our country’s astronauts managed to fix the toilet problem, as well as Microsoft Outlook. And if he can do this, he can certainly go around the moon.
I would ask NASA’s Mission Control if they could help me with my Outlook problem, but they are probably busy.
Neither NASA nor Microsoft responded to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
