International Space Station —
Dutch astronaut André Kuipers has reported that he once called the US emergency number 911 by accident while he was in the International Space Station (ISS).
Mr. Kuipers, 60, has spent more than 200 days in space. He worked on the ISS in 2004 and again in 2011.
(Source: NASA, via Wikimedia Commons.)
It may be surprising, but Mr. Kuipers says that astronauts can easily make phone calls from the ISS. They can even dial wrong numbers.
Mr. Kuipers said that phone calls from the ISS go through NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. In order to make a call, astronauts first have to dial 9, then 011.
(Source: NASA, via Wikimedia Commons.)
Mr. Kuipers told a Dutch radio show that once, while floating in space, “I missed the 0,” which meant that he dialed 911 by accident. 911 is a special code used for emergency calls in the US. Mr. Kuipers says that emergency crews actually went to the Space Center, but found no one in the room where the call had been sent from. That’s because he had called from space.
Mr. Kuipers is not alone. In 2015, Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti said she also dialed 911 by accident. Other astronauts say they have called wrong numbers from space.