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schmaltzy ballad "A Little Traveling Music, Please," and Robinson's flight director -- the mission
control center's big boss -- insisted he play the rousing U.S. Air Force theme instead. A delicate
decision.
"So I played 'em back-to-back. I thought they would cancel each other out," says Robinson
tactfully. "The only complaints were from the navy guys on the crew. But I'm not sure if they were
complaining about the air force song or Barry Manilow."
Think of the space shuttle as a high-tech road trip with a difference: You can't get out until the trip
is over, pot and beer are forbidden, and 125 miles straight down, somebody who isn't even
traveling with you gets to pick what's on the tape deck. That's often Chris Hadfield, chief mission
control CAPCOM (capsule communicator), who oversees little details like wake-up music, which
is broadcast on an intercom-type system with small speakers on the upper and lower decks of the
shuttle.
"You play some lively, peppy bit of music -- normally just two minutes of it -- and after a pause,
you hear some groggy voice on the microphone mumbling, 'Good morning, Houston,'" Hadfield
explains. "You don't want to play a dirge or something uninspiring. You want to get them going in
the morning." Consequently, the selections are usually benign -- it's considered poor form, and
possibly dangerous, to freak out a sleeping astronaut with Rob Zombie or Eminem. But the DJs at
mission control have been known to exhibit a mischievous streak. Once, to the crew's sleepy
confusion, Hadfield chose the booming half-U2 version of the Mission: Impossible theme.
The 1965 Gemini VI mission was one of the first to include onboard music. Those brave
astronauts got "Hello, Dolly!," as sung by clean-cut crooner Jack Jones. For the Apollo II moon
mission, flight director Eugene F. Kranz psyched himself up with John Philip Sousa marches. In
1972, the Apollo 17 crew heard the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun." The cheese subsided
somewhat with the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first U.S.-Soviet manned space flight: That
crew woke to the strains of Jerry Jeff Walker's "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother." Since
then, more anthemic fare has prevailed: the theme from Rocky (1984), "Bohemian Rhapsody"
(1989), and the Star Wars theme (1993). The '93 Columbia shuttle mission had better luck with hip
reveilles including the Thompson Twins' "Doctor! Doctor!" and R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People."
(It would be a different playlist if DJs did a set at mission control. Moby told Details he would
play the Clash's six-gunning version of "I Fought the Law," and a little Bach or Hendrix. Master
mixologist Armand Van Helden would spin Steve Miller's "Fly Like an Eagle" [what, no "Space
Cowboy"?] and David Bowie's "Space Oddity." Mr. Space Oddity himself would choose Steve
Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians.")
Because in space no one can hear you scream, "Turn that Crap down!," personal CD players and
headphones help fly guys maintain their sanity. For his space-shuttle mission last year -- the one
with Senator John Glenn, who preselected Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" as the
wake-up call -- astronaut Steve Robinson brought 20 discs. While riding an exercise bike on the
lower level, Robinson listened to electric-blues guitarists Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
While staring literally into space, he chose a musician friend's version of Pachelbel's Canon. He
fell asleep to Chris Isaak. "It's one of the most personal things that you're able to take up in space.
Wherever your music is, that's sort of a version of home," says Robinson. Both Robinson and
Hadfield belong to a 12-year-old, all-astronaut, Houston-based rock 'n' roll quartet known as
Max-Q, whose rotating members cover bash-it-out standards like "Louie Louie." Named after an
aerodynamics term for "maximum dynamic pressure," the band has yet to release any albums but
occasionally plays NASA functions. In 1993, they woke up the Discovery crew with a cover of
"Heartbreak Hotel."
Such musical experience comes in handy in space -- especially if you believe in cross-cultural
exchanges. Four years ago, preparing for a shuttle mission to the Mir space station, Hadfield
knew he would encounter Thomas Reiter, a German astronaut and accomplished classical
guitarist. He also knew earlier Mir astronauts had left a beat-up acoustic for future crews --
which, he surmised, Reiter wouldn't appreciate. So Hadfield had a company modify an electric
guitar, making it lighter than usual and foldable to fit his luggage. United on Mir, 250 miles above
the Earth, Hadfield and Reiter sang Beatles songs and Russian folk ballads. Air guitar, says
Hadfield, was never quite like this: "It's great floating weightless going around the world, playing
guitar."