I am ridiculously excited for the next Star Trek movie: the beginning of the Kirk/Spock relationship. The trailer is a ride!

I grew up watching Star Trek, and hold the Gene Roddenberry dream close to my heart. Space in inconceivably massive. As it is put in the film Contact, if there weren’t life beyond our biosphere, it would be an awful waste of space. I hope that one day my descendants will be mingling with individuals from other worlds.

Space Walk – Lemon Jelly

By far my top song that has anything to do with space exploration, or just space in general. The track uses samples from the 1969 Apollo moon landing*, that give the track a very unique and genuine feel. The pair take the sample of Michael Collins** expression of the beauty he sees from space and paint it with upbeat rhythms, light piano and happy guitar licks, giving us all the chance to imagine that we too, are dancing on the moon. Nick Franglen and Fred Deakin started out with an “If you build it, they will come” mentality; independently releasing 3 EPs that would later be put together as the pair’s debut album, LemonJelly.ky, that found both critical and commercial success.

Space Oddity – David Bowie

Space Oddity was one of Bowie’s epics from the late 60′s which he released during the same week as the 1969 Apollo moon landing. The song is about Major Tom, an astronaut who gets lost in space, “in a tin can, far above the world“. Bowie’s lyrics give voice to both sides of the conversation between Major Tom and ground control, from  liftoff to the haunting moment when ground control realizes they have lost contact with the repeating line “Can you hear me Major Tom?“, The sad tale has become so ingrained in society that the term “Major Tom” is known to mean someone who is lost in space, both outer and inner space. I recommend this song both for the music, and for the theatrics.

* Source – http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/hhf9/

** Transcript – http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/AS11_CM.PDF