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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."
That is all.
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
Who knew that having that many lens flares was true to life?!
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).
...he's Canadian.
And stop being so cynical. Sometimes stuff can be cool without being "viral marketing".
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.
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
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
That was pretty good, but I really liked his joint work with Barenaked Ladies (he sings there also, even though Ed Roberts does most of the vocals) in a nice tribute to the ISS...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Most expensive music video ever.
"National pride"? He's Canadian, you know. Which nation do you mean? Do you also know they don't work 24 hours per day? And on their off time, ISS astronauts still breathe? Of course, he did use up a lot of electrons saving the files and transmitting them to Earth, so I'll make sure NASA or the CSA reimburses you per Coulomb.
*** Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer http://www.badastronomy.com
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?
Bragging rights like "First Music Video in Space" don't come around every day!
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.
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.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
... 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.
> 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?
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.
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.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
On top of everything else, learn how to use a spellchecker. Your spelling of "ridiculous" is ridiculous.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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.
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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.
I am a Canadian and have seen Chris Hadfield at several presentation. He didn't market anything other than promoting people to pick up an interest in science. I think the high quality video/data transmission capability is something NASA is really proud of technically and they are trying to come up with reasons to show it off. And I agree its really sad that America has forgot how much research and technology NASA has spit out and how much more it could spit out.
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.
Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
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.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
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.
Ground control to Major Tom! Your ammonia leaks, there's something wrong. Can you hear me Major Tom?
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Commander Hadfield is the most well known astronaut since Sally Ride -- and with this, he'll be right up there with Neil Armstrong. If this is viral marketing, then THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SPACE PROGRAM NEEDS! Fun, excitement, exquisite beauty -- that's what Hadfield has been beaming back to Earth for the last five months. I've been following his facebook posts for the last couple months and I was genuinely concerned about the ammonia leak this week and his spacewalk, and so were millions of other people. How many "fans" will watch his live prime-time EDT re-entry tomorrow night after watching this video tonight? How many even bothered to watch the final Shuttle landing? This guy is a bona fide star and we who care about space exploration should be embracing him.
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.
"If you are an idealist it doesn't matter what you do or what goes on around you, because it isn't real anyway."-R.P.W.
Here's the video of him talking about playing the guitar in space.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLRunqi1mDM
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.
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 from overwork? No?
Then maybe they should relax and goof off sometimes.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
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."
He's not Bowie, but he's pretty good
OMG, you guys are a very tough crowd. To me he sang perfectly well!
*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....
bickerdyke
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
Wait, what?! They're allowed to sleep?! OUTRAGEOUS!
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Space hasn't ratified the Berne Convention.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
The original David Bowie song is really about drug addiction. In his later hit, 'Ashes to Ashes', Bowie sings, "We all know Major Tom's a junkie."
An astronaut and a rock star! Hope he doesn't try to run for Prime Minister next, that would be a downgrade.
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.
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?
"I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
I want a full orchestra in the ISS
Obviously nobody sent him the memo where Canadian scientists and public servants have to get approval for talking to the media or even giving evidence to members of Parliament. All these pictures and videos - oh boy is he ever going to get it when he gets back to CSA HQ.