NASA opens request line on music for space shuttle

Music picked by family and friends has accompanied astronauts on journeys to space since the Apollo program. For the first time, NASA is asking the public to vote on what songs will serve as wake-up calls for astronauts aboard the final two shuttle missions. People can vote on 40 songs, including “Learn to Fly” by the Foo Fighters, Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” and Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”

Mission Control will broadcast the two most-voted songs to astronauts on Space Shuttle Discovery, which launches Nov. 1. People can submit original songs about human spaceflight for Space Shuttle Endeavour’s final mission in February. “It just became a nice way for family members on the ground to offer something personal to crew members,” Kyle Herring, a Johnson Space Center spokesman, said. “The music became pertinent to what the mission was about.”

Astronauts Steve Robinson and Soichi Noguchi woke up to Mission Control broadcasting Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” in honor of the duo’s upcoming spacewalk for repair work on the International Space Station in 2005. It was the first shuttle mission after the Columbia disaster.  One of the Golden Oldies for crews on their final day in space is Dean Martin’s “Going Back to Houston.” “Space shuttle crews really enjoy the morning wake-up music,” shuttle Commander Mark Kelly said. “While we don’t have the best-quality speaker in the space shuttle, it will be interesting to hear what the public comes up with.”