NASA pays $100 million for Microsoft 365 licensing across the agency. They standardise every system on Microsoft. They put Microsoft Surfaces on the Orion spacecraft as the crew’s personal computing devices.
The first technical crisis of humanity’s return to the Moon was Reid Wiseman radioing Houston to report that he had two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one worked.
Mission Control’s response: “With your go, we can remote in and take a look.”
The same workflow your IT helpdesk uses when you submit a ticket on a Monday morning. Except the user is travelling at 4,275 mph, 30,000 miles from Earth, and the Wi-Fi situation is considerably worse.
The Spacecraft That Survived Everything Except Outlook
The Orion spacecraft survived hydrogen leaks, helium leaks, a faulty heat shield and a broken toilet. Outlook broke anyway. The toilet got fixed faster.
This is not a story about NASA’s IT procurement decisions. It is a story about the universal nature of Microsoft 365 support tickets. They arrive on Monday mornings. They arrive from 30,000 miles out. The software does not discriminate.
What This Actually Means for Your Business
Microsoft has achieved something no other software company in history can claim: a support ticket from lunar transit. Outlook remains the only software in human history that performs identically whether you are in an office in Ormskirk or aboard a spacecraft bound for the Moon. Universally, reliably, the same problems.
And businesses keep buying it anyway – because for all its quirks, Microsoft 365 is still the most capable, most integrated productivity platform available. The answer is not to abandon it. The answer is to have someone on the end of the phone when it goes wrong.
At Blowfish Technology, we have been remoting in and taking a look since 2012. Admittedly, none of our users have been in lunar transit. But the workflow is identical.
If your Microsoft 365 is causing problems – on Earth, during office hours – talk to the Blowfish team.
The Blowfish Technology team. Managed IT, cloud services, software development and connectivity for North West businesses since 1999.