****Tapper’s Sunday Morning Digest****

One of the most elegant, moving cover-songs/videos ever made is no longer publicly available.

David Bowie licensed the song to Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield to create a music video while aboard the International Space Station.

Hadfield recorded the audio down here on earth before he was rocketed into space, where he spent most of his time….monitoring systems. ….he knew there’d be a lot of downtime.

Scientists/Astronauts are afforded a unique opportunity on the ISS, but also conduct long-range studies in zero-gravity. Frequently there are precious few people aboard the ISS and all of them are deeply enmeshed in mission critical systems, maintenance and research. It is said to be a “beautiful prison.” “desperately lonely.” …it’s also time for valueble research and a lot of thinking. Where else can you get a look at “the big picture” than from space? It’s a perspective we can understand, but never comprehend.

Hatfield turned downtime into value using cutting edge visualization of zero-gravity, time-lapse photography of orbits around the earth at nightfall and expert music performance/recording a cover of “Space Oddity” on acoustic guitar with small sound-bed’s from Bowies’ original track (like the count down 10….9…..8…..7….6…….) with a  lilting, mournful piano and a balanced drum-kit....it is heartbreakingly beautiful.  

The resulting combination of technical imaging and artistic expression was posted to YouTube. Views grew geometrically-with web-users sharing the video across Facebook, twitter, Google, and other platforms.
…taken down just recently, it had over 22 million views.

Not exactly “Gangnam Style” but a remarkable success in North America for reminding us of the nostalgia of our shared past, and technical-audio-visual capabilities of our present. Hadfield’s expertise in engineering and music breathed life and energy into space exploration in a creative way.

This clip has the audio, and carefully altered video to keep it from the notice of Youtube….the author interlaced most of the video with b-roll from “Gravity”***(see my footer on security, fair use and legal protection you’re covered by IF you access relevant audio/visual HERE. I do NOT recommend searching for a pirated copy it may contain malware, or you could be flagged by your ISP, clients could put their server at risk. This site is the only safe place to hear the audio and view clips of the video please give it a listen before it gets pulled… Hadfied’s cover is gorgeous but the visual-component has only about 5% of the of the actual video, Bowie’s count-down intro is removed and replaced. It has 4000 views, but these and others like it will trend and get blocked soon so please enjoy, especially if you’ve never heard it….this may be your last chance— as for the complete, historic, viral inspirational video? we may never see it again. WATCH/LISTEN BEFORE THIS VIDEO IS PULLED. CHRIS HADFIELD IS NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO PERFORM THIS SONG UNLESS BOWIE MODIFIES THE LICENSE HE GAVE TO HADFIELD. THIS COULD BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO EVER HEAR IT OR SEE VIDEO LOOSELY RELEVANT TO HIS PROJECT.

 

In Bowie’s original song, The beauty, isolation and concern for the safety of “Major Tom” by “Ground Control” highlighted the societal fascination and fear with space travel, the inherent beauty of NASA , and The Apollo Missions– it’s subsequent technology and massive contributions to education, machines and electronic of every kind. The microprocessor, digital technology, major progress in materials engineering and household products of all kinds
….by-products of technologies The Apollo Program required to put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.

By 2011, The Obama Administration retired the space exploration program indefinitely…with “hopes to restart it” at an unknown later time.

Even Nasa’s Blog expressed the sadness felt by a generation of scientists, inspired by the space program and given the case to sustain it forever by Carl Sagan.

This writer cried when that shuttle came down. Americans cannot get into space without “3rd-partyshuttle services” provided by constituent governments involved with the ISS. I thought about Carl’s hopes and dreams about our future. Carl is kind of spiritual father to me….he died in 1996. In 2011 I thought “Carl would be deeply saddened. Profoundly…” I knew the moment the last shuttle landed it would break his heart. It subsequently broke mine.

As of September 28th, 2014… Americans must “hitch a ride” from other nations in order to access space.  There is still no discussion in the legislature or executive to even consider bringing it back.

Hadfield is Canadian, but was no less effected by the dawn of the 70s Space Age...when kids thought “science was cool” and if you asked any child of the 70s what he wanted to be he grew up, “I wanna be an Astronauts, just Like Neil Armstrong [or Buzz Aldrin]”

It was the first thing since that tragic day in mid-2011 to give me hope for the future of space exploration. We humans seek the unknown by nature, we learn…there is nothing left to see on the earth or the moon and robotic craft like Voyager I and II mapped most of the solar system…..but as of today there is still no official program to send humans to Mars, though it has been proven there could be an American station base ON Mars BY 2020 if the gov’t would fund it.

The administration said a shuttle progran is “too expensive” and “wasteful in a depressed economy” When in fact; sending 5-10 Americans to Mars to establish a functioning colony would show massive ROI across the American landscape. PBS artist Melody Sheep uses auto-tune to mix catchy beats with scientific/cultural media. His “case for Mars” sums it up better than my prose:

 

 

Bowie licensed “Space Oddity” to Hadfield for 1 year with options to renew. The reasons are unknown why Bowie cancelled the renewal. Perhaps it will appear as an iTunes/amazon download……perhaps he isn’t making the money he feels is deserved for his contribution to this viral project….and his timeless track that inspired it’s initiation.

As a human being though, he is harming the inspirational nature of Hadfield’s project, it’s ability and contribution to moving society away from war, terror and fear and back into innovation, creativity, exploration and peaceful solutions.

When Obama cited financial concerns” regarding space explorations, saying the “program is to be placed on hold indefinitely,” Noted Theoretical Physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson said on “Real-Time with Bill-Maher” avail: HBO/HBO-GO that “The defense department has spent $14-trillion since the Afghanistan-campaign began,” $14-trillion, if stacked in $100 bills beginning on the floor would reach from here to VENUS”” (!!!) The cost to maintain a small fleet of space shuttles, an adequate secure-base, ground control, systems maintenance and process validation, fuel etc….it could all be maintained at Vandenberg Air Force Base or Edwards Air Force Base in California…..or The Kennedy Space Center in Florida, or other staging/deployment zones w/in the US for less than 1 percent of what we spend to kill “brown people”

Afghanistan is where Lithium is mined. Lithium is needed in batteries, computers, medicine and all sorts of electronic and mechanical infrastructure. It’s a vital resource. I must also note that 90 percent of the opium is grown and harvested in and around Afghanistan. KBR has been wanting to build an oil pipeline running directly through Afghanistan—>That’s probably unrelated….KBR’s subsidiary Halliburton wouldn’t drain $1 trillion a year from taxpayers just to build a pipeline, would they? hmmmmmm…. Afghanistan has important, valuable natural resources….it would make far more sense to spend all those trillions on R&D – which would include a sustainable colony on Mars as opposed to military and military contractor work. After all…once those resources we need so bad are stripped clean, what would we do then? There are other sources of energy than Litium and oil, Likewise we have synthetic painkillers ever stronger that opiate derivatives. Getting back to research and creativity isn’t just the right thing to do, it a better business strategy.

***Thx for reading….there are important things happening right now, you wont find information or perspective like this anywhere else.

***Legal note: the YouTube author of the altered video has done so at his/her OWN RISK. I posted the audio/video that is as close as I could find that gives viewers who never saw it an indication of what it was like. This MAY constitute copyright infringement on behalf of that YouTube channel. However, it’s posted here within an ethical framework of providing relevant information pursuant to an ongoing news story and is covered under fair use. Readers can view/listen on my page in a secure way that protects you legally and from malicious intent.

My ability to inform and entertain is made possible by generous corporate sponsors Media Temple, Google.com, friends, family, fans and readers like you.

Enjoy your Sunday! If you’ve taken and intertest in the first three installments of “The Cal Poly San Luis Obipo News Archive” I’ll be connecting with more sources and source material you won’t find in traditional media. My intent is to document the hard news stories that have been buried. Bring the stories back to life, show responsibility and respect for the families of the victims and remind the university that they may operate above the law inside their isolated system, they may also manipulate local law enforcement…but they do not operate above ME. UC Berkeley is in deep trouble for the same thing. Again, I’m not investigating my alma mater to grow this site. It’s the RIGHT THING TO DO and the surge in traffic is a by-product of that. -Tapper7.com – unfiltered truth since January 2014.