GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR CHRIS

By Colin Kerr, Executive Editor, EuroTimes

If you were a teenager growing up in the 1960’s, David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, released in 1969, would have been part of the soundtrack of your life.

Space travel defined that decade in the same way that the internet defines the times we live in today.

I’d recommend that anyone who loves m music and literature should listen carefully to Bowie’s lyrics and then read “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe, one of the great American novels about the pioneers who put man on the moon (also listen to “Man on the Moon “by REM for a more whimsical insight into the great adventure ).

It started on April 12, 1961 when Yuriy Gagarin, an army major in the Soviet Union remained in orbit for 1 hour and 48 minutes, proving that human beings can survive in space.
http://www.spacechronology.com/1960s.html#ixzz2TA3bOjQJ

For most children and young boys of my generation, the pinnacle of the space age was reached on July 16, 1969 when the American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin safely landed on the moon, while Michael Collins orbited around it. Their space ship Apollo 11 spent 21 hours and 31 minutes on its surface and returned safely back to Earth.

So where do we go from here?  Commander Chris Hadfield has posted a cover version of Space Oddity, recorded 230 miles above the earth on his last day in charge of the international space station.

Only the great, great songs can bring tears to your eyes, and Hadfield’s version of the Bowie classic is one of them.

The lyrics have been reworked slightly but Hadfield has stayed true to the original and made it even better with a really stunning video.

Welcome home Chris, on behalf of all the ophthalmologists in the world who dare to go where no man or woman has gone before.