NASA intern job lost over tweet

Crude response to space official

WARNING: Tweets contain profanity

A would-be NASA intern blew her chances of starting a career at the agency after unknowingly engaging in a Twitter war with a member of the National Space Council.

The saga began Monday when user Naomi H celebrated her acceptance into the internship program with a profanity-laced tweet.

“EVERYONE SHUT THE F--- UP. I GOT ACCEPTED FOR A NASA INTERNSHIP,” she wrote.

While she was clearly excited, Homer Hickam, a former NASA engineer and current NSC member, didn’t approve of her response as he promptly replied with a very dad-like answer: “Language.”

Rather than taking his advice, Naomi, who didn’t know who he was, crudely answered: “Suck my d--- and b---- I’m working at NASA.”

“And I’m on the National Space Council that oversees NASA,” Hickam shot back.

It turns out that not long after the spat, NASA informed Naomi they were rescinding her internship offer, according to Hickam’s now-deleted blog post reported by Newsweek.

This provoked a furious response from Twitter users, who launched personal attacks at the 75-year-old as they assumed he had a role in getting the hopeful intern fired.

Hickam claimed he had nothing to do with the decision and blamed Naomi’s friends for her dismissal.

“This I had nothing to do with nor could I since I do not hire and fire at the agency or have any say on employment whatsoever,” he wrote on his blog.

“As it turned out, it was due to the NASA hashtag her friends used that called the agency’s attention to it long after my comments were gone.”

The Rocket Boys memoir author went on to say Naomi reached out to him with an “unnecessary apology which I heartily accepted and returned with my own.”

Despite losing the internship, Naomi’s story could still have a happy ending thanks to some help from the one-time engineer.

“After talking to her and looking at her resume, I am certain she deserves a position in the aerospace industry and I’m doing all I can to secure her one that will be better than she lost,” Hickam wrote.

It remains to be seen if the NASA hopeful will realize her dream, but it looks like she has learned her lesson from the incident as she made her Twitter account private so future employers won’t see her posts.