NASA Opens Voting For Original Songs To Awaken Next Shuttle Crew

HOUSTON -- NASA is inviting the public to vote for its favorite
original song to wake up space shuttle Commander Mark Kelly and his
five crewmates during their STS-134 mission to the International
Space Station. Voting runs from Tuesday, March 29 through launch day,
which currently is targeted for April 19.

Electronic voting is open to the public on NASA's Space Rock website,
which includes the songs, inspiration and biographical information
about the 10 finalists:

https://songcontest.nasa.gov/

Songwriters and performers from around the world submitted 1,350
songs, including 693 from 47 states, 105 from Canada, and 552 from 61
other countries. The song contest began Aug. 20, 2010 and ended Jan.
31. The finalists were notified on Feb. 18.

Below are the original song finalists (alphabetical by song title):
"Boogie Woogie Shuttle," by Ryan McCullough (Savannah, Ga.)
"Dreams You Give," by Brian Plunkett (Halfway, Mo.)
"Endeavour, It's a Brand New Day," by Susan Rose Simonetti (Cocoa
Beach, Fla.)
"I Need My Space," by Stan Clardy (Statesville, N.C.)
"I Want to Be an Astronaut," by Michael J. Kunes (Phoenix)
"Just Another Day in Space," by Kurt Lanham (Jacksonville, Fla.)
"Rocket Scientist," by Tray Eppes (Cullen, Va.)
"Spacing Out," by Jeremy Parsons (Nashville, Tenn.)
"Sunrise Number 1," by Jorge Otero (Ovideo, Spain)
"The Countdown Blues (Hymn for Tim)," by Sharon Riddell (Nashville, Tenn.)

The two songs with the most votes will be the first original songs
chosen by the public to be played as wakeup music for a shuttle crew.
The STS-134 Original Song Contest ran concurrently with the Top 40
Song Contest for shuttle Discovery's STS-133 mission. The Top 40 Song
Contest ended earlier this month.

The song contests join the ongoing "Face in Space" project offering
the opportunity to send a picture to space via an electronic
transfer. During Discovery's mission, more than 194,000 images flew
in space. So far, almost 117,000 images have been submitted to fly
aboard shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 flight. To send your face to space
aboard Endeavour, or Atlantis on the STS-135 mission targeted for June, visit:

http://faceinspace.nasa.gov

The 14-day mission will be the 36th flight to the space station and
the 25th, and final, flight for Endeavour. Pilot Greg H. Johnson and
mission specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and
Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency will join Kelly.
They will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics
detector designed to search for various types of unusual matter by
measuring cosmic rays. The crew also will deliver the Express
Logistics Carrier-3, a platform that carries spare parts to sustain
station operations once the shuttles are retired later this year.

For more information on the Space Shuttle Program and Endeavour's
final mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

Source: NASA

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