How to Wake Up an Astronaut: Vote Now

By Nancy Atkinson - March 29, 2011 at 9:05 AM UTC | Space Exploration
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From folk to boogey-woogey to cute kids singing, you've got 10 original choices for which song should be the winner of NASA's Space Rock contest in the Original Songs category. While I'm personally bummed that my song didn't get chosen as a finalist, the ten choices are creative, fun and really awesome. It's great to know that there are other songwriters out there who are passionate about space exploration, too! NASA said 1,350 original songs were submitted, including 693 from 47 states in the US, 105 from Canada, and 552 from 61 other countries. 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, and will be played during the STS-134 mission, sending a 'rise and shine' to space shuttle Commander Mark Kelly and his five crewmates during their mission to the International Space Station. Voting runs from Tuesday, March 29 through launch day, which currently is targeted for April 19.

Listen to the songs and vote at the Space Rock webpage.

And you can still participate in the

"Face in Space"

project, which allows you 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

the Face in Space Website.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com