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A Spot on NASA's Playlist Gets a Song Heard Around the World

Posted on: Thursday, 13 July 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Traci Watson

For the astronauts aboard space shuttle Discovery, being in orbit is serious business. It's dangerous. It's exhausting. It's demanding.

And it's set to ABBA music.

Early Saturday morning, Discovery's crew cabin was flooded with I Have A Dream, a syrupy ballad from the Swedish pop megastars of the '70s and '80s. The song was the latest in an enduring NASA tradition: the personalized wake-up call.

In a ritual dating to the Gemini program of the mid-1960s, astronauts awake not to alarms but to music chosen by family or friends. I Have A Dream was picked by the 8- and 11-year-old daughters of astronaut and unlikely ABBA fan Mark Kelly, a former Navy test pilot.

The songs may seem frivolous, but the astronauts welcome them as moments of good cheer during their hectic assignments, says astronaut Mario Runco, who's not part of the Discovery crew. As construction of the International Space Station ramps up and the workload on shuttle flights gets heavier, wake-up songs will serve as a morale booster, says Runco, whose collection has supplied many of the recordings piped up to space.

"When you hear something that's special and directed at you ... you realize you have the support on the ground," he says.

Crewmembers' friends and family say they're happy for the chance to brighten the astronauts' day. When Kelly wakes up Friday to U2's Beautiful Day, girlfriend Gabrielle Giffords, who chose it for him, hopes he'll be inspired.

"Something that's got a nice, moving melody is better than a punk rock song," she says.

The playlist is organized by the astronaut at Mission Control who serves as the link to the crew in space. Most wake-up songs fall into one of four categories:

*College and military. Well over half of the astronauts serve or have served in the military.

*Chirpy and upbeat. James Brown's I Got You (I Feel Good) is a perennial favorite.

*Earnest. Some spouses choose love songs. Others choose Christian tunes, such as God of Wonders, played last week for Discovery astronaut Michael Fossum.

*Tongue-in-cheek. Sonny & Cher's I Got You Babe was featured in the movie Groundhog Day, about a man who wakes up to the same day over and over. It's often played for crews whose launch or landing is delayed repeatedly.

Anthony DeCurtis, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, says some kinds of music are nearly absent from the playlist. There is no hip-hop, for example. "These are people in an extreme situation," he says. "I'm not sure it's realistic to expect aesthetic daring."

Any kind of music can have a positive effect on mood as long as it's something the listener likes, says Pennsylvania State University's Valerie Stratton, who has studied music and emotions. At the same time, a song that gives one person a boost could seriously annoy another person.

"I think they need to agree on what they play," she says.

When the crew was asked whether there had been any teasing over the ABBA song, Kelly backed away from the microphone.

"I used to be an ABBA fan," crewmate Piers Sellers said pointedly. "Hey, Mark, come back!"

Source: USA TODAY

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