Boynton man chosen to 'tweet' about NASA launch

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. - Veteran "tweeter" Anthony Bosio of Boynton Beach is one of 150 people selected to send out Twitter messages from the Kennedy Space Center when NASA launches the next Mars Rover spacecraft this week.

Bosio - known as abosio on Twitter - is a web developer at Lynn University in Boca Raton and boasts he was an early "tweeter;" starting in March 2007.

"I never imagined my use of Twitter could lead to an experience like this," he said in a release.

A two-day "tweetup" is set for Wednesday and Friday (it skips Thanksgiving Day). It will culminate with the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover aboard an Atlas V rocket from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It's scheduled for 10:25 a.m. Friday .

Curiosity is anticipated to arrive at Mars' Gale crater next August and spend two years investigating whether parts of the planet could have supported life and checking for any evidence of life.

Tweeters, who come from across North America and as far away as Europe and Australia, were selected through a lottery from more than 1,050 @NASA Twitter followers .

Participants will tour Kennedy and Cape Canaveral, including a close-up visit to the launch pad.

Starting at 11 a.m. Wednesday, NASA will broadcast a portion of the Tweetup when attendees talk in person with several people associated with the mission: Jim Green, Planetary Science division director, and Doug McCuistion, Mars Exploration program director, both from NASA Headquarters in Washington; as well as engineers and mission scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where the rover was designed.