Astronaut Chris Hadfield Performs Space Oddity On the ISS 212
An anonymous reader writes "With updated lyrics, commander of expedition 35 on the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield, sings Space Oddity on board the ISS. He's not Bowie, but he's pretty good."
Viral Marketing by NASA (Score:2, Interesting)
This is very cool but it is so well done that it looks less like one guys space video and more like a viral marketing effort from NASA...
Im ok with it because NASA needs to do whatever it can to recapture Americas attention and imagination and thus maybe we can get public support to make space a priority as it should have always remained.
Even better - duet with Barenaked Ladies (Score:4, Interesting)
That was pretty good, but I really liked his joint work with Barenaked Ladies [youtube.com] (he sings there also, even though Ed Roberts does most of the vocals) in a nice tribute to the ISS...
Imagine How Disappointed Richard Branson Is.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bragging rights like "First Music Video in Space" don't come around every day!
Re:If this is what we currently have on our task l (Score:2, Interesting)
> We seriously have NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF TREASURE than to record a music video?
Jesus dude, lighten up. If we took your activities performed at university over the course of 3 months, could we find anything that you did for 4 minutes that did not directly benefit the students you are teaching? Would it be fair to make a big spectacle and claim that we should lock the doors to your school and shut it down after giving it "millions of dollars worth of treasure" because you read an email from a loved one, or went to the bathroom, or ate lunch? Science is conducted by humans, and humans need to take a break from time to time. Just chill out already.
> This is probably the most collossal waste of resources imaginable.
Really? This is the most collossal waste of resources imaginable?
Congrats (Score:5, Interesting)
This guy's near daily media appearances has certainly inspired many canadians including myself. I have watched many children sing along with his ISS song (not as good as david bowie, but its the thought that counts) and it really inspires. Hopefully helping lots of kids to think about becoming scientists, researchers and yes astronauts. Space can seem so dull sometimes, he really brings it to life.
I may not care for much patriotically these days, but hes really doing canada a service being so media savvy. I am not sure if american astronauts do so much singing, and perhaps its covered extensively by their local media and I just never hear about it. But he really could be one of a kind.
(My) definitive version (Score:2, Interesting)
In an odd little coincidence, the first time I ever listened to the original version of this song was yesterday. What can I say, I don't listen to much music, not from that era (yes, yes, I'll get off your damn lawn now, old man).
I have now listened to the Commander Hadfield version more times than the original. And, while Bowie is undoubtedly more musically talented, there's something about Hadfield's version that makes it seem more... emotional? Real? Something like that. Whatever the reason is, I prefer it over the original.
Re:Viral Marketing by NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
Space (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree.
America may have forgotten about the drive to build, explore, settle, create, but humanity hasn't. Space isn't sour grapes. It's hard, and settling it is going to be a lot harder. But it will happen.
Re:Great footage too (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, it makes it seem pretty fucking stupid that we used 37 Space Shuttle missions with a 25 tonne payload capacity to build and supply this space station when it could have been built simpler with a couple of Saturn Vs.
The lesson here is that heavy lifting capability is how you win in space, not super fancy flying trucks. It probably would have been cheaper to build an ISS in orbit and another spare orbiting the Moon with heavy lift rockets than to go the piecemeal way that we did.
Viral marketing? FINALLY!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Guitar playing (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the video of him talking about playing the guitar in space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLRunqi1mDM [youtube.com]
Advantage is that you don't need a guitar strap, disadvantage is that you float around if you'd not holding something with your feet. Also tend to mis-fret when first in space.
You can see the velcro on it in the Bowie song, but i think that is more for stowage than use.
Re:Not very long delay, station is really close (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't there a lag in communications?
The ISS orbits around 330km - 435 km above the earth (around 230 miles on average). That's less than the width of a single province in Canada!
If you look at various communication delays [spaceacademy.net.au] based on distance, and assume that during the performance the ISS was basically roughly over Canada or even the U.S, you can see that the delay would be substantially less than for most international phone calls!
As far as I can tell, the high bandwidth connections they use for media events are done by bouncing a Ku band signal off geostationary satellites(*), and the delay is significant (watch any of his videos taking questions from school kids and you'll see a noticable communications delay).
(* they don't seem to have global coverage with Ku band, only being able to use it when in range of certain satellites. This surprises me because I would've expected there to be enough geostationary sats for one to be visible from anywhere in orbit and it can't be *that* expensive to buy bandwidth on several.)