Discovery

vilaine fille has been a space geek since she was a wee thing. Even now, she devoutly believes that space exploration—bringing peoples together for a lofty, thrilling, awe-inspiring purpose—could do more to uproot terrorism and extremism than any number of prisons or bombs.

So she salutes and sends a hearty "G-dspeed" to Discovery commander Eileen Collins, mission specialist Wendy Lawrence, and the other brave and gallant crew members who will take flight on Wednesday, 13 July. As Commander Uhura says to Admiral Kirk in Star Trek III (yes, I'm *that* kind of space geek, too): "All my hopes."

Discovery's mission, including a visit to the International Space Station, will involve cosmonauts and astronauts from Australia, Japan, Russia, and the United States.

Here's a link to NASA's STS-114 homepage, with a real-time countdown, photos, a news archive, and a link to live webcasts.

Some more space-related stuff:

A Washington Post article about Laurie Anderson's stint as NASA artist-in-residence, and a page about The End of the Moon (which I unfortunately missed). Also, read about the freepers' battle against NASA's artist-in-residence program.

Terry Riley's Sun Rings, commissioned by NASA for the Kronos Quartet.

Copernica by Martin Wattenberg, NASA's first commissioned piece using the Web as a medium: "a database of artwork which would also be a piece of art in its own right."

Annie Gosfield's enthralling "Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites."

"Orion"  by Philip Glass, coming to BAM in the fall.

Brian Eno's "Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks."

What's your favorite space-inspired piece of music?

Comments

[TomM]

'Moon Dance,' from the album 'Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy,' Sun Ra & His Myth Science Archestra.

[such stuff]

I'm a space geek too, though more Doctor Who than Star Wars....

Laurie Anderson at NASA, what could be more fitting?

rb

Les Étoiles

Les étoiles chaque nuit sont épatées
Sont amoureuses encore une fois
Autrement elles seraient fatiguées
Avec le ciel et tout cela
Elles diraient « pourquoi briller,
Et pour combien de temps,
Sans l’amour pour la vie et tout cela
Serait fatiguant »

Les étoiles, elles brûlent comme ça,
Elles brillent comme ça,
Elle fait son effort, qui n’est pas un grand effort,
Vraiment
Sans l’amour pour la vie et tout cela
Serait fatiguant

Les étoiles, elles brûlent comme ça,
Elles brillent comme ça,
Elle fait son effort, qui n’est pas un grand effort,
Vraiment
Mais sans l’amour pour la vie et tout cela
Serait fatiguant

Jonathan Richman
(from Not So Much to be Loved as to Love)

Listen to sample here

Humans from Earth

We come from a blue planet light-years away
Where everything multiplies at an amazing rate
We're out here in the universe buying real estate
Hope we haven't gotten here too late

[chorus:]
We're humans from earth
We're humans from earth
You have nothing at all to fear
I think we're gonna like it here

We're looking for a planet with atmosphere
Where the air is fresh and the water clear
With lots of sun like you have here
Three or four hundred days a year

[chorus]

Bought Manhatten for a string of beads
Brought along some gadgets for you to see
Heres a crazy little thing we call TV
Do you have electricity?

[chorus]

I know we may seem pretty strange to you
But we got know-how and a golden rule
We're here to see manifest destiny through
Ain't nothing we can't get used to

We're humans from earth
We're humans from earth

T-Bone Burnett

(from soundtrack to Wim Wender's Until the End of the World)

Listen to sample here