Commander Hadfield does Major Tom and wins the internet today, hands down.

Commander Chris Hadfield handed over the reins to the International Space Station overnight to Pavel Vinogradov , and will be climbing into the Soyuz capsule together with Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko for a wild three-hour ride back to Kazakhstan later today.

Prior to his departure, he tweeted the following musical number. What else, but David Bowie's Space Oddity! And like so many of his posts, it created a social media sensation! Understandably: this was an outstanding post. Enjoy!



I found myself thinking that his singing voice was not what I expected—a lot higher pitched. But then I remembered that the ISS atmosphere is thinner than on Earth, noticably changing vocal pitches.

I do wish the one scene where he sang:
"Floating in a most peculiar way..."
was flipped 180 degrees so he was hanging from the 'ceiling'.

Nice to see towards the end that the guitar was caught just before it crashed into anything. That is going to be one incredibly valuable guitar once it's back on Planet Earth!

Hadfield's return to Earth will bring to an end what I'm sure was the most shared and publicly followed six months in ISS history. When I started following him on Twitter while he was still training for this mission, he had a few thousand followers. As he is leaving the ISS he has an amazing 777,000 followers!

NASA Johnson Style - rocket science meets Gangnam in a brilliant video.

Oh this is wonderful: a whole bunch of the crew at NASA's Johnson Space Centre get in on the act in this Gangnam parody, including astronauts  Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Mike Massimino and Clay Anderson, and even the Chariot Moon Rover that Keri Bean did some work for.

Enjoy:


I love how for such a funky effort, the description goes all trad NASA agency-speak:

NASA Johnson Style is a volunteer outreach video project created by the students of NASA's Johnson Space Center. It was created as an educational parody of Psy's Gangnam Style. The lyrics and scenes in the video have been re-imagined in order to inform the public about the amazing work going on at NASA and the Johnson Space Center.

Some things won't change...

(Hat tip to Keri Bean. Go to the link above and listen to her interview now—it's great. Now. Go on...)

ACT grant to the National Folk Festival much needed

The ACT Government has provided the National Folk Festival with $134,000 to ensure the event can go ahead in 2013 and beyond.

They say that the NFF asked the Government for an urgent meeting and advised that they would experience cashflow difficulties by July if they were not able to secure financial assistance.

Treasury looked at the NFF financial reports for the past five years, and recommended that $134,000 be given to give the NFF time to undertake a detailed business plan to support a return to sustainable operations.

I for one am glad to see this support. The National Folk Festival is an important event on the region's cultural calendar and does indeed bring a lot of money and cash to town, not to mention fantastic musical talents.

Live @ BAC - free waterfront concert this Friday evening

This looks like an interesting free music event for those in North Canberra.

At the Belconnen Arts Centre, on the lakeside, Emu Bank, 5.30 to 7.00pm Friday 4 May.

It's hard to beat the beautiful BAC lakeside backdrop!

Oh - and while you are there, you'll be able to check out the latest art on exhibit in the galleries.

Disclosure: I'm on the BAC Board (but have stood down during my ACT election campaign).

"The Scream" animated - to Pink Floyd! Brilliant.

The pieces fit beautifully here. Pink Floyd's iconic music and Edvard Munch's world-renowned 1893 painting "The Scream" brought to life. Enjoy!


The Scream from Sebastian Cosor on Vimeo.

Via Kuriositas

Why have I never seen this before?? Dr Who at the Proms - awesome!

What a brilliant way to mix up classical music with a contemporary theme and modern audience.

This performance, in six youTube clips, brings the wonderful Doctor Who music to the fore. And makes you realise just how big a part the music has been playing in the new Doctor series - without you even realising! And the big screen clips and the sounds from the show add so much to the performance than just having the music stand alone.

And the characters themselves going among the audience...! My kids would be beside themselves... They freaked when they first met Daleks in the 'flesh'. Having a Cyborg stomp down their aisle would result in complete mayhem.

And the noise from the audience - how utterly inappropriate for a classical music concert - and how delicious it is to hear!

I love this from one commenter too:

I find it funny that back when most movies and tv shows used real orchestras, Doctor Who used synthesizers; now, when most movies and tv shows use synthesizers, Doctor Who uses a real orchestra.

How can we get this show to come to Australia??



There are five more parts following here. Enjoy: