Music in Space

This video was posted by NASA about a year ago, but I somehow just stumbled on it. Among many other things, astronaut Cady Coleman is a flute player, and when she was on the International Space Station last year, she carried several flutes with her, including one belonging to Ian Anderson (best known as the leader of Jethro Tull). Last April, as a tribute to Yuri Gagarin on the 50th anniversary of his first spaceflight, Cady performed a flute duet with Anderson - she on the ISS, he on the ground. The song was a version of Anderson's "Bouree" which is in turn an adaptation of a Bach piece.

I really like Cady Coleman. She is one of the few astronauts I've had a chance to meet. She visited my space flight simulator demo booth at a Space Expo at the New England Air Museum a few years ago, and we spoke for a few minutes about educational outreach. She struck me as incredibly down-to-Earth (when she's not in space). I didn't realize at the time that she is also a musician.