Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
American astronaut best known for his spacewalking missions.
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, 'From the New World' (Second Movement)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
one of the first times I listened to it closely, I was in an airplane many years ago flying over the Grand Canyon, and the airplane was in those days a new fangled one. It had a sound system aboard and was playing the New World Symphony as we flew above the Grand Canyon. I'll never forget it.
I have a very personal interest in the recording artist David who performs and has also written composed the music, He is my brother-in-law.
I've selected one of the numbers on a favorite album of mine, which in fact was composed right here in the City of London for the very popular production Cats.
A soundtrack from a movie that's a favorite of mine, The Big Chill, and the particular piece on that soundtrack is a well known record.
Variations on the Kanon by Johann Pachelbel
Very restful music, some of it holiday music and Christmas music.
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by André Previn
as we listen to this, let's imagine ourselves floating in zero gravity, looking out through the large windows of the space shuttle at the world passing by below us.
Elton John actually visited the Space Center about ten years ago. He was performing on a concert tour through the State... and that night at his concert performed what I've selected today, which is Rocketman.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:46When you're on the space shuttle, do you have any music?
We do hear just bits and pieces of music occasionally that come up from below. Normally, however, we carry on board cassettes, just very normal, ordinary cassettes that we play in cassette players very much like a Walkman... We do not play them aloud in the spaceship only because some people might not not like that particular selection or someone else might be trying to catch a quick nap, but we play them with earphones.
Presenter asks
2:55What was your first ambition?
I decided as a young man to become a teacher, and I've always enjoyed thinking about that, and I in fact studied at the university to be a teacher of science and physics.
Presenter asks
7:32How accurate is a simulator [for space flight training]?
a simulator is in many ways like a Hollywood version of a space flight as experienced from within the spaceship itself... All the while, though, we don't feel the g-forces of acceleration, even though we may be practicing the liftoff... And most importantly, all the dials, gauges and switches in the simulator actually do work.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
9:30Before an astronaut is allowed into space, how many hundred hours should he have done in the simulator?
Hundreds. It it varies from individual to individual. Before John Young and Bob Crippen flew the space shuttle for the very first time, they had each amassed upwards of one thousand hours of practice... you go over and over and over the assignment until you absolutely get it right in every respect.
Presenter asks
19:46I'm sure you must get the sensation that you're going to fall when you leave the spaceship [to spacewalk]?
Well you would think so, but in fact you don't. When we we go outside the spaceship first of all, we're quite accustomed by then to floating... And when we're working in the payload bay, we're very carefully tethered to the spaceship... Even if we were to float away, we're in good position because we just reach for the cable, give a gentle tug, and pull ourselves right back to something firm that we can grab on to.
“We officially call it the flight data file. Astronauts refer to it jokingly sometimes as the owner's manual for the space shuttle, but the flight data file consists not of just a book, but a number of books, checklists, cue cards and reminders, a total of which weighs, not in space but on the ground, 55 pounds. So we carry 55 pounds of books into orbit with us.”
“When we go out to it, it's already very unlike any simulation because the ship itself creaks and groans and steam is coming out not steam really, but the mists from the cryogenic fuels loaded aboard. And it seems to have a personality in life of its own that we've never seen before as we approach it.”
“you go from weighing three times your normal weight and within one second's time you weighed absolutely nothing at all. And then you're in orbit.”