Music is also part of Artemis II. Not what astronauts can listen to in their limited personal time while they are in Orionalthough today is the day they will enjoy ‘mostly downtime’, but ‘wake-up songs’, a long tradition in NASA manned missions. Each day, at the scheduled wake-up time for the Artemis II crew, Mission Control radios Orion and plays a short snippet of a song to help them start the day in a good mood.
Among the songs that have been played so far are a version of ‘Sleepyhead’, by Passion Pitperformed by Young & Sick; ‘In a Daydream’, by Freddy Jones Band; and ‘Pink Pony Club’, by Chappell Roanwhich prompted a friendly complaint from the crew because Mission Control cut it off before the main part arrived. ‘We were all looking forward to the chorus’said Reid Wiseman, commander of Artemis II.
So far, the wake-up songs broadcast by NASA on this mission have been:
Flight Day 1: ‘Sleepyhead’ by Young & Sick
Flight Day 2: ‘Green Light’, by John Legend feat. Andre 3000
Flight Day 3: ‘In a Daydream’, by Freddy Jones Band
Flight Day 4: ‘Pink Pony Club’ by Chappell Roan
Flight Day 5: ‘Working Class Heroes (Work)’ by CeeLo Green
Flight Day 6: ‘Good Morning’, by Mandisa and TobyMac
Flight Day 7: ‘Tokyo Drifting’ by Glass Animals and Denzel Curry
A tradition that started with the Gemini program
The ‘musical awakenings’ date back to Geminithe United States’ second manned space program, which ran from 1961 to 1966. In Gemini 6 (1965), music was played for the first time in space with ‘Hello Dolly’, sung by Jack Jones; the only musical theme in that mission. But during Gemini 7 (1965), a lot of classical music was heard, from Beethoven, Chopin and Pucciniamong others, and also some jazz with ‘Hey, Look Me Over’, by Louis Armstrongand rock and roll with ‘What’d I Say’, by Trini Lopez.
The custom continued with the program Apollowho succeeded Gemini. The astronauts of Apollo 10 (1969), for example, woke up one day to the song ‘It’s Nice to Go Trav’ling’, by Frank Sinatraand in Apollo 15 (1971) very appropriately played the main theme of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. One year later, with Apollo 17was heard in space Wagner with ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’, to make the first awakening of the astronauts on the Moon even more epic, and also ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’, by The Carpentersamong other compositions.
The space shuttle program had a lot of wake-up songs. For example, the mission pilot’s son STS-134, Greg Johnsonchose ‘Drops of Jupiter’, by Trainto play for his father during that 2011 mission. On that same mission, the penultimate of the shuttle program, ‘Il Mio Pensiero’, performed by Ligabue for the mission specialist Roberto Vittori.
During the last space shuttle mission, the STS-135in 2011, the pilot Doug Hurley chose to play ‘Viva la Vida’ and ‘Don’t Panic’, both by Coldplay. Michael Stipeof REMalso personally sent an a cappella version of ‘Man on the Moon’ for the crew and Elton John sent a recorded message to accompany the playing of ‘Rocket Man’.
According to the compilation made by Colin Friesfrom NASA’s History Division, the space agency has issued more than 1,000 wake-up songs throughout its many decades of space programs. Some repeated multiple times, like ‘What a Wonderful World’, by Louis Armstrong, which has been played in space on 11 occasions.