Astronaut Chris Hadfield Performs Space Oddity On the ISS

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."

Comments

Ashes to Ashes

[Bing Tsher E]

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
we know major tom's a junky
strung out on heaven's high
hitting an all time low

Re:Viral Marketing by NASA

[yincrash]

Chris Hadfield is a Canadian (working for the CSA). I'm sure that Chris would like more people to want to go in to space and become scientists, etc. If you look at his previous videos though, I would say this is pretty in line with the other stuff he's done (just with more effort in to it).

Re:Viral Marketing by NASA

[yincrash]

Additionally, this is the person 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.

Re:Great footage too

[ldobehardcore]

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.

Not very long delay, station is really close

[SuperKendall]

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 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.

Can we at least spell the astronaut's name right?

[cmason]

I mean, in the title. Really? The dude's in space. I think the least we can do for him is not space out on the spelling of his name.

Re:Congrats

[tlhIngan]

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.

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, 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...)

Re:Music recorded on Earth

[_anomaly_]

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?