posted 03-08-2011 07:51 AM
Today's STS-133 wakeup song, "Blue Sky" by Big Head Todd and the Monsters, was performed live in Mission Control. Lead singer and guitarist Todd Park Mohr, whose inspiration for the song was space shuttle Discovery's STS-114 "Return to Flight" mission in 2005, told STS-133 commander Steve Lindsey that he thought the live wakeup call was a first.
The singer was mistaken, as is NASA, which has repeated the claim on Twitter and on its website.
Not long after the STS-114 mission in November 2005, Paul McCartney woke the crew of the International Space Station with a live performance. McCartney wasn't in Mission Control though, he was in Anaheim, Calif. delivering a concert at the Honda Center (then Arrowhead Pond).
So, was Mohr's song the first to be radioed live from the Houston control center?
According to Colin Fries' chronology of wakeup calls prepared for NASA's History Office, it may not have been. Fries' entry for the STS-41B mission includes this for Feb. 10, 1984:
A live rendition of The Air Force Song ("Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder") from all the Air Force CAPCOMs.
A check of the air-to-ground transcript for STS-41B doesn't say one way whether the capcoms were in Mission Control.Does anyone have a recording of that wakeup call, or remember that day, and can definitively say whether the capcoms or Mohr was the first?
posted 03-08-2011 07:51 AM
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