After a long day manning the very edge of human knowledge and exploration, sometimes an astronaut just wants to check e-mail (or read xkcd, or watch clips of Jersey Shore...).

NASA announced on Friday an upgrade that astronauts on the International Space Station can take advantage of—access to the Internet via the ultimate wireless connection. The personal Web access, known as Crew Support LAN, takes advantage of the existing high-speed Ku-band communications system. The astronauts will be browsing through a computer on the ground, viewing the desktop via an onboard laptop and interacting remotely with a keyboard touchpad.

Expedition 22 flight engineer T.J. Creamer was the first to post a live, unassisted update to his Twitter account, tweeting, "Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s."

Astronauts have been using Twitter from space since 2009, but before this all updates were e-mailed to ground personnel who had access to their Twitter feeds.

So now the real question is: If they can figure out Wi-Fi for the space station, why can't they set it up at my favorite coffeehouse?

[via TechCrunch]