Astronauts André Kuipers, left, of The Netherlands and Luca Parmitano of Italy at the European Space Agency on October 24, 2012, in Noordwijk aan Zee, Netherlands.
(Michel Porro/Getty Images)
Dutch astronaut André Kuipers was trying to call someone on Earth.He missed a zero and wound up dialing 911.That triggered an alert at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Even aboard the International Space Station, you have to dial 9 to get an outside line.
And Dutch astronaut André Kuipers says that's part of the reason he accidentally called 911 when he was trying to reach NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The space station has a phone that uses internet protocol, or IP, to connect with phones on Earth. It even has a Houston area code, 281.
To make his call, Motherboard writes, and then while trying to dial the international access code, 011, he missed the zero.
That triggered at alert at the space center.
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“The next day I received an email message: Did you call 911?” Kuipers told a .
Kuipers, a 60-year-old astronaut with the European Space Agency, has , according to Newsweek.
He told the radio show it's fairly easy for the station's astronauts to communicate with folks on the Earth. Though there are delays in the conversations.
“Sometimes people would hang up because they thought I did not say anything, so later on I started to talk as soon as I had dialed the last number,” Kuipers said.
He's not the only astronaut to fumble a number in space, according to Motherboard.
British astronaut Tim Peake, “I'd like to apologise to the lady I just called by mistake saying ‘Hello, is this planet Earth?' - not a prank call...just a wrong number.” Peake tweeted.
Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti , “Ha, ha! I called 911 once by mistake :-) Merry Christmas!”