![]() ![]() As a space opera, Oddity had risk, courage and danger at its core. It's all so theatrical.īack in 1969, though, Space Oddity grabbed the collective imagination about the heavens in a much more visceral way. People are excited at the prospect of humans on Mars, seeing sleek spacecraft and hearing about plans to terraform the red planet. Today, the new space race – led by private entrepreneurs such as millionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic – is gathering momentum. 'Um, but he gets stranded in space, sir.' Nobody had the heart to tell the producer that." Obviously, some BBC official said, 'Oh, right then, that space song, Major Tom, blah blah blah, that'll be great'. Of course, I was overjoyed that they did. "It wasn't a pleasant thing to juxtapose against a moon landing. "I'm sure they really weren't listening to the lyrics at all," Bowie once told an interviewer. Rush-released early, days before the moon-landing, it also launched Bowie's career. Astonishingly, Bowie's song about an astronaut who doesn't return to Earth served to promote the space race. There was Neil Armstrong taking heroic lunar steps while Earth audiences listened to Major Tom spinning off into nothingness, his expedition a failure. In 1969, though, Bowie's original version with its aching lyrics was played as theme music during the BBC's live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Hadfield could hardly have done otherwise, given his profession and the need to publicise the space program. That seems short-sighted.Moon director Duncan Jones (right) with his lead actor, Sam Rockwell. And that can't be good for Australia to tell your young people that, 'Oh, you're interested in space travel? Then go somewhere else'. If you're a young Australian, and you're interested in exploring the rest of the universe, you have to leave. Where are the areas of expertise like Canada has pursued? Robotics, and remote sensing, and telecommunications … really benefit our country, and it's a multi-billion-dollar industry in Canada. ![]() I think Canada is maybe not a bad example of the type of space agency that Australia could form. And Australia, with the Woomera test range, with three Australians that have left this country in order to become astronauts, I think they have a long history of recognising that potential is out there.Īnd it's only slightly smaller than Canada in size and population. To deny that the rest of the universe exists, or that space isn't a viable subset of the businesses of the world, I think is a little bit self-defeating. Should Australia create its own space agency? Loading. And from that we whittled it down to two. In Canada, about 8,000 people started the process, about 3,700 completed it - had a good application. You have to have the right citizenship, of course, for any particular country's agency.Īnd hopefully you have some work experience that is indicative of your ability to succeed as an astronaut. You have to have an advanced university degree. You have to be a certain size, because you have to fit both in a space ship and a space suit, so you can't be enormously tall or short or fat or thin. Loading YouTube content What it takes to be an astronaut Loading. To me that might be the best part: that he got delight out of my particular version of the song. He had always fantasised about flying in space - Starman, and Mars, and all that other stuff, and I think for him it was just like a gift, to have that song updated with the lyrics, performed actually in space, just a couple of years before he was taken. He wrote that song at the beginning, when he was still 19 or 20, before we had even walked on the moon. I think, for him, he knew he was ill - it was getting to the end of his life. He described it as the most poignant version of the song ever done, which just floored me. David Bowie 'loved' the recording Loading. He spoke to Lateline about the late pop star's reaction to his recording, what it takes to become an astronaut, and whether Australia needs to carve its own path in the space industry. It started as a little "family project", he told Lateline - something fun to do with his son, back on Earth, while he was aboard the International Space Station.įour years later, the music video they created and released has been viewed more than 35 million times, and Hadfield, now retired, has become one of the best-loved figures in seven decades of space exploration. ![]() In 2013, while rotating around the Earth, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded a cover of David Bowie's early career hit, Space Oddity. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |