Space Cowboys: Big Head Todd Serenades Shuttle Crew

​If someone woke Rocks Off up at 2:30 in the morning with a Big Head Todd & the Monsters song, even the band themselves, we might have a few choice words for them. But we suppose it's a little different when you're 220 miles above the Earth.

That's what happened earlier today (way earlier today), when the Colorado-born jam guitarist and three bandmates stopped by Mission Control in Clear Lake to serenade the crew of Discovery's final flight. Commander Steve Lindsey and five other astronauts were orbiting the southern tip of South America when Todd and the Monsters broke into an acoustic version of "Blue Sky," which the band wrote for Discovery's return to orbit in 2005, and recently won NASA's "Top 40 Song Contest" to find wake-up music for the astronauts.

This morning was the first time a live musical performance was beamed into space, according to a NASA press release.

Second place, by the way, went to the theme from Star Trek, which was played for the Discovery crew Monday morning after a special message from Capt. James T. Kirk himself, William "The Transformed Man" Shatner. We're guessing that special message was not "Get a life!"

After Discovery's scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida tomorrow morning, it, along with the Endeavour and the Atlantis, will be retired. The New York Times has an interesting article today about the competition between various museums and institutions (including our own Johnson Space Center) to be the spacecrafts' final resting place.

Watch Todd & the Monsters' entire performance here.

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