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."
Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
He's not Bowie, but he's pretty good.
And, you know, he's actually in space.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Funny)
He's not Bowie, but he's pretty good.
And, you know, he's actually in space.
And Bowie wasn't?
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Predictable :-)
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Funny)
For now.
Re:Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
I was expecting to hate it but I actually enjoyed it.
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That and the 6 string guitar. Space Oddity is a quintessential 12 string song... and for a segue, Brian May also played 12 string on several songs ('39 and A Night At the Opera come to mind) and he played with Freddy Mercury in Queen.
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The only thing is, he may have already had the 6 string there. Sending up a 12 string to make it "correct" is a really expensive venture.
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Brian May also played 12 string on several songs ('39 and A Night At the Opera come to mind) and he played with Freddy Mercury in Queen.
He also is one of the few people with a known and defined Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath Number: He's co-authored astrophysics papers that can trace back to Paul Erdos to get an Erdos Number of 7, is 3 steps away from Kevin Bacon on IMDB, and unsurprisingly has performed with Black Sabbath.
Ashes to Ashes (Score:4, Informative)
That seems like such a weird song to sing up there sitting in a tin can.
Bowie sorta updated the matter on Scary Monsters anyway.
ashes to ashes funk to funky [lyricsdepot.com]
we know major tom's a junky
strung out on heaven's high
hitting an all time low
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That seems like such a weird song to sing up there sitting in a tin can.
Bowie sorta updated the matter on Scary Monsters anyway.
ashes to ashes funk to funky [lyricsdepot.com] we know major tom's a junky strung out on heaven's high hitting an all time low
A fwiw comment about the original song: I knew it had come out decades ago, but was surprised to discover (after checking Wikipedia) it was Bowie's breakthrough and first commercial success, hitting the top 5 in the U.K. when it was released on July 11th, 1969 -- for myself, a date close enough to the Apollo 11's moon landing to making it interestingly appropriate.
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.
Re:Viral Marketing by NASA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Viral Marketing by NASA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Viral Marketing by NASA (Score:5, Funny)
Additionally, this is the person [twitter.com] in the credits who edited it, also a Canadian, and doesn't work for any space agency. Let's try not to think everything is a conspiracy, please.
The only conspiracy coming from up here (canada) is a push for more maple syrup for breakfast, and bacon in every meal. We're winning on one of those fronts.
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If you are winning on bacon at every meal, I will be moving there asap. The maple syrup conspiracy will not be looked down upon either lol
Re:Viral Marketing by NASA (Score:5, Funny)
Additionally, this is the person [twitter.com] in the credits who edited it, also a Canadian, and doesn't work for any space agency. Let's try not to think everything is a conspiracy, please.
The only conspiracy coming from up here (canada) is a push for more maple syrup for breakfast, and bacon in every meal. We're winning on one of those fronts.
Let's not forget about operation Poutine.
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Let's not forget about operation Poutine.
I have a feeling that will be the downfall of Canadians in space. Can you imagine gravy covered cheese curds bouncing into equipment in zero-G?
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I'm certain the theft of your syrup reserve was a conspiracy to send the Canadian nation into turmoil. (j/k in case anyone thinks I'm serious)
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By claiming there is no conspiracy, you prove to those who believe in the conspiracy that you are part of the conspiracy.
That's what they want you to believe.
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Um... (Score:5, Insightful)
...he's Canadian.
And stop being so cynical. Sometimes stuff can be cool without being "viral marketing".
Re:Viral Marketing by NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
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Maybe we could petition NASA to send David Bowie to the Space Station...
Lens Flare (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lens Flare (Score:5, Funny)
JJ Abrams?
Re:Lens Flare (Score:5, Funny)
Every video gamer.
I've got retinal damage from all the flare in current games.
Space oddity (Score:3, Insightful)
Attaboy Chris
you sounded great, A Canadian space rock and roller.Hey, if you ever wanted to try your hand at karaoke .. we are at the Wally, Donlands and OConnor in Toronto.
*grin* and have a safe trip back
Safe return (Score:2)
Here's to a safe return journey back to earth tomorrow.
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...
Re: Even better - duet with Barenaked Ladies (Score:2)
Isn't there a lag in communications?
Not very long delay, station is really close (Score:5, Informative)
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! In fact calling from one major city to another in the same country probably has as much delay, and there's no discernible delay to the caller in that case (well if you aren't using Skype).
It just goes to show how there's not much up you have to go before you are in space.
Also one could imagine that if you were "super serious" and kind of nerdy about doing a performance (as both the commander and BNL would be), that you might also set up a synchronized metronome that really did clock off at exactly the same time at the two locations to help the performer on the ISS stay in sync. But I doubt that was needed, and for a performance it's probably far more valuable to be able to riff off how the other performers are playing.
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.)
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Does anyone have an idea why they're doing this? IIRC the distance to geostationary orbit is bigger than the omne to ground, so why waste energy for that long distance stuff?
Re:Not very long delay, station is really close (Score:4, Informative)
Does anyone have an idea why they're doing this? IIRC the distance to geostationary orbit is bigger than the omne to ground, so why waste energy for that long distance stuff?
At a guess: the Ku band geostationary satellites are already there commercially, so its cheap to just buy some bandwidth when they need it. Doing high bandwidth communications with the ISS directly would require an extensive network of dedicated ground stations with pointable dishes (and appropriate backhauls between them) - remember the ISS is doing an orbit every 90 minutes, so a single ground station isn't going to be able to keep a connection for long. A geostationary sat is going to be able to keep the ISS within its coverage area for much longer than a ground station.
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It's not too hard to spot the ISS going overhead when the conditions are right - it's like a fairly bright star [flickr.com] going at a fair speed across the sky. It's visible for just minutes at a time - it's sufficiently close to the Earth that you'd definitely need a hefty world-wide network to communicate directly.
(NASA ISS sightings site here [nasa.gov].)
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Brief information here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-3NJxzlAGU&t=10m16s [youtube.com]
His description of how they access the internet is a bit vague.. sort of sounds like they have some kind of remote-desktop setup for internet access, which seems slightly odd. I guess if this is the case, it does protect them from malware by ensuring that only the remote-desktop server is infected rather than the ISS computers themselves, which might be the whole reason for it.
Re:Not very long delay, station is really close (Score:4, Informative)
Does anyone have an idea why they're doing this? IIRC the distance to geostationary orbit is bigger than the omne to ground, so why waste energy for that long distance stuff?
The ISS orbits the Earth 15.7 times a day. It has an orbital period of 92 minutes and 50 seconds. That means that it's rotational velocity relative to the centre of the Earth is almost 4 degrees per minute, which is pretty difficult to track.
Of course, that's assuming your antenna is at the centre of the Earth, and the Earth doesn't obstruct signals (not true). In the real world, your antenna is on the surface of the Earth, and is only going to be able to communicate with the space station when it's passing overhead. The angular velocity of the station relative to you is going to be much, much higher than 4 degrees a minute, because it's coming mostly towards you, passing relatively close. (The Earth's radius is 6371 km and the ISS orbits at 330 to 435 km of altitude, so it's pretty close.
If you can't picture this difference in relative velocity, imagine a fast car on a long circular race track. Imagine you're standing in the middle and turning to watch it as it circles you at constant speed. Now imagine yourself trackside. The car whings past you in the blink of an eye, then takes a seemingly long time to go round the rest of the track, and when it gets back to you, it whings past again.
So while the path of the ISS can be accurately computed in advance and could theoretically be programmed into a motorised antenna, it would have to be a very very expensive motorised antenna, and it would have to be meticulously cleaned before every use to avoid any of the bearings jammed even for a fraction of a second.
Not only that, but if we picture ourselves back at the trackside, we get the familiar weeeEEEEEE-Yowoooooooooo as the car passes us: the so-called Doppler effect. Any direct transmission between the ISS and ground stations would suffer the same distortion due to relative speeds. A broadcast to geostationary orbit suffers no doppler effect relative to any point on the surface of the Earth (obviously -- zero relative velocity), and the distortion due to the relative speed of the ISS vs geostationary is pretty much negligible (the ISS's orbit has a radius of approximately 6700km, whereas a geostationary satellite's rotation has a radius of 42000km -- you're no longer at the race track; you're now watching someone driving in a small circle at the opposite side of the car park, and the engine noise doesn't change pitch perceptibly).
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Thanks for the pointer & explanation. While I was quite aware of the problems for direct communications ground to ISS, I somehow expected it much more difficult to aim for the parking lot from the race-car but of course this gets easier with distance
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So it's all been done before?
Hefty pricetag (Score:4, Funny)
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Unless of couse its sarcasm, but you can never tell on the internet.
Maybe you can't.
Imagine How Disappointed Richard Branson Is.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bragging rights like "First Music Video in Space" don't come around every day!
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.
Re:Congrats (Score:5, Informative)
Before he launched in December, Chris mentioned he was going to do the first album recorded in space, I'm hoping this was just a taste of what's coming.
I have to be honest, I've been watching a LOT of Chris' videos that get posted by the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) (an agency facing budget cuts from the Harper Government(tm)). I don't think I've seen anyone from the ISS do so much media relations in their off time.
I know a few other commanders have done media work - Don Pettit did some as well. With the American Physical Society (any physics major should know them) he did a bunch of videos called "Science off the Sphere" (which I apparently finally got my T-Shirt from that).
Chris is definitely very media friendly and has hosted a LOT Of media events while aboard - he even keeps in touch with Discovery Canada's Daily Planet [discovery.ca], the longest running science program around. Honestly, Chris Hadfield is awesome!
Safe journey home - your country eagerly awaits your arrival!
(Alas, Canada's first astronaut was snubbed recently... [www.cbc.ca])
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I may not care for much patriotically these days, but hes really doing canada a service being so media savvy.
He's doing the *world* a service. His regular youtube videos have been excellent; but more than that, his regular facebook posts really bring it home to you that this stuff is happening right now all the time. And he's not just followed by Canadians - no other astronaut from any nation has engaged with the public as much as he has. I'm hoping we see more of this from other astronauts.
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I am not sure if american astronauts do so much singing, and perhaps its covered extensively by their local media's lawyers
This is why we can't have nice things in the U.S.
(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
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Hello Space Boy (Score:2)
That was brilliant.
Thanks
Astronaut Chis Hadfield Performs Space Oddity (Score:2)
"Astronaut Chris Hadfiled Performs the Song Space Oddity"...FTFY
Lyrics (Score:3)
Ground control to Major Tom! Your ammonia leaks, there's something wrong. Can you hear me Major Tom?
Viral marketing? FINALLY!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Can we at least spell the astronaut's name right? (Score:5, Informative)
Something really usefull for Earth (Score:2)
A robotized HD high-speed telescope-digital camera on the surface of the moon could provide nearly real time imagery of the whole Earth surface. It could be very useful for mapping Earth.
Satellite imagery is spotty. Satellites have unstable orbits. They contribute to the space junk issue.
Good maps of Earth can do a lot, a lot of good to our planet, - to reduce traffic pollution, to fight fires more effectively
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Since the orbit of satellites are unstable the imagery is hard to connect with geographical coordinates precisely.
I do not think humanity can live in space. We on Earth are protected from deadly radiation by the massive iron-nickel rotating planet's kernel.
So let us place the HD telescope-digital camera on the surface of the Moon and direct it not to the r
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Satellite imagery is spotty. Satellites have unstable orbits. They contribute to the space junk issue.
"Spotty"? What does that mean? Also satellites do have the slight advantage of being 2000 times closer.
Robots are smaller than humans.
Except for the ones which are bigger.
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Robots can be miniaturized even further. Humans can not.
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The problem, however, is the clouds and fog. But the telescope-HD camera can make photos of Earth at the areas where the air is clear on that day.
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The distance is not the problem. There are telescopes already which make photos of planets around other stars.
And those photos would be clearer get if we were 2000 times closer, like the satellites in LEO are than the moon.
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A robotized HD high-speed telescope-digital camera on the surface of the moon could provide nearly real time imagery of the whole Earth surface. It could be very useful for mapping Earth.
No. It'd be imagery of half the surface, and you wouldn't be able to look at the other half until two weeks later.
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Two weeks is fine. Even two months is not that bad.
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To weeks... I work now on a map of the town with a satellite imagery from 2010. And besides it is offset by about 100 meters at some spots.
Newer imagery likely exists, but hasn't been licensed yet.
And the moon would only be able to get consistent imagery of the tropics, because it can't look downwards on the high latitudes except during rare extreme phases.
Pretty good? That's all? (Score:3)
He's not Bowie, but he's pretty good
OMG, you guys are a very tough crowd. To me he sang perfectly well!
Music recorded on Earth (Score:2)
Why couldn't they push the envelope and record the music on the ISS too?
Re:Music recorded on Earth (Score:5, Informative)
The guitar and vocals were, in fact, recorded in space.
The music was mixed with his guitar and vocals on Earth. What else do you want? Chris Hadfield in space, mixing tracks with the original recording in Pro Tools? Him playing the piano accompaniment on the ISS?
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I want a full orchestra in the ISS
imagine that (Score:4, Funny)
Kinda teary-eyed... (Score:2)
I'm not a sappy emotional kind of guy, usually far from it, but that had me tearing up. He may not have the raw vocal talent that Bowie has, but he nailed it in every other respect. That's always been one of my favorite songs anyways, now even more so. I'm gonna have to see if I can get a copy somewhere.
Brilliant (Score:3)
Unlike most people posting tripe in here, I was 10 years old when Bowie released this - it was fantastic (and I also think the first music video?).
I am now 53, and this version is brilliant (and apt) - would I as a ten year old expect this to happen 43 years later? No way.
Brilliant stuff.
When is Hadfield's disciplinary hearing? (Score:3)
Obviously nobody sent him the memo where Canadian scientists and public servants have to get approval for talking to the media [thestar.com] or even giving evidence to members of Parliament [winnipegfreepress.com]. All these pictures and videos - oh boy is he ever going to get it when he gets back to CSA HQ.
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I know the ISS isn't considered a glamorous undertaking like a mars trip would be, but damn it is one impressive piece of hardware, and the most advanced thing we've built in space to date.
Is it really that much more impressive than Skylab, which launched 40 years ago? Skylab had a pressurized volume of 320 m^2 versus 837 m^2 of the ISS today - not even 3 times larger, despite launching nearly 30 years later. You'd think that in 40 years we could have something in space that's more impressive. The Curiosity Rover seems much more impressive in comparison than a tin can that orbits 250 miles above the earth.
Re:Great footage too (Score:5, Informative)
Skylab was never really meant to be a long-term satellite. It spent 2,249 and only 171 of those were spent occupied. In comparison, the ISS has been in orbit for 5288 days, 4575 of them occupied. So I'd say ISS is over twice as kickass, and over 25 times as habitable as skylab.
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.
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*Impressive* would rather be a description of the Mir. Having a space station that consists 98% out of duck tape and paper clips, build around a actual former space station that broke down is pretty impressive....
Re:If this is what we currently have on our task l (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If this is what we currently have on our task l (Score:5, Insightful)
... then we need to shut down this thing NOW! We seriously have NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF TREASURE than to record a music video? This is rediculous. Let's turn off the lights, lock the door on the way out and save that money for something more important. Don't give me this "national pride" or "scientific discover" B.S. If that stuff needs to get done, then F'ing do it and don't waste time singing in space. This is probably the most collossal waste of resources imaginable. How many resources were needed to scrub the air necessary for the singing? When you are in space, that stuff matters, A LOT! The first take wasn't the last take, that I know. Don't give me the "get kids into science" schtick either. Kids who are swayed by silly things like this, statistically don't end up any good at the math needed for real science anyway. I teach our "future engineers" in a top state university. Most can't even solve a triangle, let alone deal with any higher math. If you are swayed by this commercial, you don't have the chops to stick with an engineering career.
Humans, even astronauts, need downtime - If you want a human to be effective, then you can't fill 100% of their waking time with work.
Re:If this is what we currently have on our task l (Score:5, Funny)
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> 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
Re:If this is what we currently have on our task l (Score:4, Insightful)
On top of everything else, learn how to use a spellchecker. Your spelling of "ridiculous" is ridiculous.
l'art pour l'art (Score:3)
Does everything need to be about money? Can we not do things for the sake of doing them?
Was that not the great driving force behind the space race? We may have done some science on the moon, but it was hardly worth the billions we spent. But it was worth it to go there, simply for the sake of going there.
Space Race (Score:2)
As has been put much more eloquently by others, the space race wasn't about climbing a mountain because it's there. It was about trying to prevent world war 3 (or at least postpone it significantly). As expensive as it was, it was better than all out nuclear war.
It was akin to challenging one's rival to a foot race instead of a boxing match. It was one of the most mature things national governments have ever done. (room remains for improvement)
Re:l'art pour l'art (Score:4, Informative)
You, and several other haters, are falling for a variant of the sunk cost fallacy - that, because it was so expensive to get him into space, every second of his time needs to be occupied in "useful tasks".
That's not how it works. There has to be some "down time", both as a buffer against the "useful tasks" taking longer than anticipated (like that ammonia leak they had to fix a few days ago), and just because human beings cannot be working every waking minute.
The cost/benefit analysis included those necessary "down times", and it was deemed worth it to send him into space. This music video was not planned for, but there was sufficient extra time found for it, and I'm sure once again, it was deemed more productive than anything else he could do (remember, a lot of "productive work" requires new equipment to be shipped up there, which is expensive).
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Please learn something. About something.
Seriously, the chances are pretty good that if you learn anything about any field of human endeavor, you will find something that is part of a compelling rebuttal to your idiotic screed.
Starting point: Humans cannot productively "work" all of their waking hours. They have to do other things to remain sane and functional. Do you think we should intentionally have the space station be run by, and maintained by, people who are no longer sane and dangerously incompetent f
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Dang. Triangles are a problem?
I'm calling Orkin.
DNFTT
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are an idiot. The man is making space (geeky) real (taxpayers). Space is the future. Anyone with an actual personality is welcome up there. This is my new favorite astronaut. Neil Armstrong step aside. We need to get back. Did you see his other 50+ educational videos?
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:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure someone has been just as narrow sighted before... "How is the America the future? The future of what? It's an empty savage infested hell. It's good place to send those who disagree with our religious beliefs. That's it. America is the past, the Columbus Age is as dead as polytheism."
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This would be ok on TMZ... someone beat the editor!
What? The fact that the guy should better die on ISS or else face the RIAA/BPI [wikipedia.org] suit for unlicensed public performance (no matter David Bowie's prediction [forbes.com]) isn't interesting enough for /.?
(grin)
Re:Really? (Score:4, Funny)
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Space hasn't ratified the Berne Convention.
This is why he's safe while still on ISS.
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.
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To be fair, had I been in his position, I wouldn't want to sing those parts of the song too.
He had other lyrics, about his mission being close to over, which I believe were written specifically for him.
Shachar
...with a version of "Life on Mars?" (Score:2)
...on Mars.