Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon, Elton John's Rocket Man, the theme song from Star Wars? The US public is being asked to vote on songs to be played to wake the astronauts on the last two space shuttle missions, dpa reported. Rather than carry alarm clocks in space, NASA has for decades played music to awaken slumbering astronauts, but the songs have typically been chosen by the astronauts themselves or by their friends and family. On Friday, NASA put out a call to the general public to vote on a list of 40 songs with the top two choices to be played on the shuttle Discovery's flight scheduled for November. Votes can be made at https://songcontest.nasa.gov/home.aspx until the shuttle launch. It also wants to inspire the creativity of composers to write an original work with a space them to be played during the final shuttle mission set for February. NASA will narrow down finalists and the public will then chose their two favourite original songs. The deadline to submit a work is January 10. The three-decade-old space shuttle programme is to be retired next year.
