NASA Song Contest: Help Pick the Wake-Up Call

August 23, 2010 — What music do you wake up to each morning? Now you have a chance to help decide what songs the astronauts aboard the space shuttle will wake up to during the last two scheduled missions. Traditionally, family and friends of the crews select the songs played to wake up the astronauts. But for the final two scheduled missions, NASA is inviting the public to visit the Wake-up Song Contest website to vote on songs from a list of the top 40 previous wake-up calls and to submit original tunes for consideration. The two songs with the most votes from the top 40 list, which includes songs such as U2’s “Beautiful Day,” Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” or 3 Doors Down’s “Kryptonite,” will wake up the STS-133 crew on the final scheduled flight of space shuttle Discovery. Discovery's mission is targeted to launch on November 1. Then, to wake up the STS-134 crew, the public can submit original songs to NASA for consideration. All original songs must have a space theme and be submitted to NASA by 4 p.m. CST on January 10, 2011. Click here for the contest rules. NASA officials will review the songs and the top finalists will be put to a public vote, starting on February 8, 2011. Endeavour's mission is the last scheduled space shuttle flight. It is targeted to launch on February 26, 2011. Use of music to awaken astronauts on space missions dates back at least to the Apollo Program, when astronauts returning from the moon were serenaded by their colleagues in mission control with lyrics from popular songs that seemed appropriate for the occasion. The songs have continued since then as a means to promote a sense of camaraderie among the astronauts and ground support personnel. The song contest campaign follows NASA's ongoing "Face in Space" project. It invites the public to send electronic images of their faces into orbit aboard one of the final remaining space shuttle missions. Click here to submit your image.

What music do you think they’d like to wake up to while working on the International Space Station? The STS-133 crew includes, from left, mission specialists Alvin Drew and Nicole Stott; Eric Boe, pilot; Steve Lindsey, commander; and Michael Barratt and Tim Kopra, mission specialists. Image credit: NASA

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