When I first saw this I couldn’t tell if it was cringeworthy or simply awesome. But listening to the whole thing I’m gravitating heavily toward option two.
This is Chris Hadfield, commander of the International Space Station, performing Bowie’s Space Oddity from … well, space. (Helps that Space Oddity remains such an incredible song.) After the jump …
A few more thoughts on this. I grew up in a household where manned spaceflight was a big deal. A really big deal. And that’s almost entirely a testament to my father. So as I’ve watched this a couple times now, I’m over to the unambiguously awesome camp. Some of it is because Space Oddity is such a good song which holds up amazingly well after almost 45 years. And Hadfield really puts in a pretty damn good performance. But more than anything else it’s human spaceflight itself. The imagery, real imagery on this video, is just spectacular — especially the sped up over the Earth views. It’s an amazing thing to see these things and know that humans can experience them, even if I never will.
