Space flight is finally becoming a reality for non-astronauts. Very, very rich non-astronauts. For a couple hundred grand, you can reserve a seat on Virgin Galactic, which is planning trips to space and beyond. Your fellow passengers might include Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie and Stephen Hawking, all of whom have already reserved window seats.
The rest of us will have to make do with watching music videos like David Bowie’s classic “Space Oddity”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D67kmFzSh_o&feature=related
We can also take comfort in knowing that Voyagers I & II are taking the sounds of Earth into deep space, engraved on special gold records. Intended to be discovered by an alien civilization, the records contain greetings in 55 languages, as well as music from Bach, Beethoven and Berry. Chuck Berry, that is. And this may well be the first thing aliens learn about earthlings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ofD9t_sULM
We hope the aliens like rock 'n’ roll, but we’re sure they would like this next bit of psycho-tronica. For a truly out-of-this-world experience, nothing matches William Shatner interpreting poetry as he does here with Elton John’s “Rocket Man”:
