- 2018-07-22
-
MUSIC
-
-
Donate to support families affected by the crisis in Ukraine ➔ Kraftwerk Performs “Spacelab” with German Astronaut from International Space Station
German electronic pop band Kraftwerk performed “Spacelab” at Stuttgart’s Jazz Open Festival with German astronaut Alexander Gerst, who is currently stationed on the International Space Station.
German astronaut played a part of the song with a tablet computer from space, hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface.
“Good evening Kraftwerk! Good evening Stuttgart! I am one of only six people in space, on the outpost of humanity, the International Space Station (ISS), 400 kilometers above sea level,” Alexander Gerst told the audience.
“The ISS is a Man-Machine, the most complex and valuable machine humankind has ever built,” he continued. “Here in the European Columbus Laboratory, the successor to the Spacelab, the European Space Agency (ESA) is researching things that will improve daily life on Earth. More than 100 different nations work together peacefully here and achieve things that a single nation could never achieve. We are developing technologies onboard the ISS to grow beyond our current horizons and prepare to take further species into spaces, to the Moon and Mars.”- “Spacelab” is included on Kraftwerk's seventh studio album "The Man-Machine" in 1978. It was written by Hütter and Karl Bartos.
Kraftwerk was formed in 1970, currently member consists of Ralf Hütter (lead vocals, vocoder, synthesizers, keyboards), Fritz Hilpert (electronic percussion), Henning Schmitz (electronic percussion) and Falk Grieffenhagen (ive video technician).
In the past, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield famously recorded a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and played a space-to-Earth duet with the Barenaked Ladies in 2013.
Also, American astronaut Ron McNair planned to play saxophone with Jean Michel Jarre from orbit in 1986 but died in the Challenger space shuttle disaster. - source : Rolling Stone
