NASA Interns Go Viral Thanks To Orion-Inspired Parody Song

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
A group of NASA interns are apparently reaching for the stars, and perhaps even looking to launch themselves into a new career, thanks to their new parody of Meghan Trainor’s hit song “All About That Bass.”

The song, fittingly titled “All About That Space,” was made by the Pathway Interns at the Johnson Space Center as part of an effort to publicize the Orion spacecraft’s first test flight – at least, that’s what they claim, according to Chris Mills of Gizmodo.
“But let’s be honest, this is probably just the result of budget cuts and bored interns. Either way, it’s everything a NASA pop parody video should be – bad puns, gratuitous use of rocket backdrops, and surprisingly OK vocals,” Mills said, quipping that most interns “get coffee and do endless photocopying,” but not those working at NASA!
Space.com Staff Writer Miriam Kramer said that the lyrics to the song were written by NASA intern Sarah Schlieder. Those lyrics include: “If you got boosters boosters, just raise ’em up / ‘Cause every spacecraft needs propulsion / From the bottom to the top / Hey, they’re working so hard, don’t you love these NASA guys? / They will take us so far the first time that Orion flies.”
CNET pointed out that this is far from the only performance to riff on Trainor’s hit song, including the Thanksgiving-themed “All About That Baste” and a Star Wars-inspired cover called “All About That Base.” While the song itself “might not be as catchy as the original,” the website said it was “easy to look past that because the… interns are just so goofily endearing.”
As of Saturday, the NASA video was already nearing the one-million views milestone – just one day after being uploaded to YouTube, according to RT.com. While that may be a far cry from the more than 375 million views Trainor’s video has received, it has nonetheless made the interns somewhat of a viral video sensation.
Orion, which successfully completed its Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) earlier this month, is expected to eventually carry US astronauts on a manned mission to Mars. It is the first American spacecraft built for astronauts destined for deep space since the Apollo program, according to NASA, and is designed to travel farther than any previous manned mission.
“With lessons learned from Orion’s flight test, NASA can improve the spacecraft’s design while building the first Space Launch System rocket, a heavy booster with enough power to send the next Orion around the moon for Exploration Mission-1,” the US space agency explained. “Following that, astronauts are gearing up to fly Orion on the second SLS rocket on a mission that will return humans to deep space for the first time in more than 40 years.”
Shortly after the successful completion of the test flight, NASA confirmed that it was already working on its next capsule, which would be used to fly Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1). While the next Orion mission will also be unmanned, it will involve a far longer flight, traveling around the moon while carrying an operational service module to produce power.
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