dakota2112 Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Anyone else hearing Countdown in their head? (The final shuttle launch is going to happen within an hour, pending weather cooperation) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dakota2112 Posted July 8, 2011 Author Share Posted July 8, 2011 Seriously? No one??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dakota2112 Posted July 8, 2011 Author Share Posted July 8, 2011 I guess I'm talking to myself, but job well done on the final launch. Atlantis is in orbit now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbarlint Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Awesome song. It is now in my head. Thank you!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IChoseFreeWill Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Oh yeah. Especially since I live in FL- albeit in the other coast. Did not get to see the launch- too cloudy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenken Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Dont like this song at all. I was thinking of "It's the final countdown", while watching the final shuttle launch, even though that song sucks too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Sawyer Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 Ummm.... no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
friendlyfloridian Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 I was there about 1 mile from the launch pad. It was awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
circumstantial tree Posted July 8, 2011 Share Posted July 8, 2011 I remember the first space shuttle launch in 1981! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kozmo4Rush Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Something tells me we have not heard the last of any Rush related posts regarding the shuttle. Wait and see....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostnotes Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Since they wrote a song dedicated to the first liftoff, I think it's only fitting that they write one for th final liftoff. Thoughts?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lerxt1990 Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackhawkrush Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 I thought this was a thread about a countdown to "Clockwork Angels." sorry... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majestyk Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 How can anyone not like this song? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InvisibleAirwaves13 Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 That is funny. I was watching it on TV at lunch yesterday and both my friend and I were humming the Final Countdown tune! End of an era with the final launch. We need to advance the space program and keep our focus on the big universal picture! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenken Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 QUOTE (Majestyk @ Jul 9 2011, 06:43 AM) How can anyone not like this song? Never liked it. I guess in part because I think the lyrics are awful. It's almost written like an essay, just way too overly descriptive and linear I guess. Just seems like the kind of lyrics a little kid would write about the space shuttle. They sound really corny to me. The music doesnt do much for me either. Not a fan of this one at all. The shuttle on the other hand is awesome, sad to see it die, especially without any replacement. If we want to send men into space now its on russian soyuz rockets where they will be charging us 65 million per man. Ouch. Hell of a lot cheaper than doing it ourselves though. Shame that we have to rely on them though for all future space missions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrxtopher Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 I LOVE LOVE LOVE this song. It was always one of my favorites on Signals, maybe second only to Subdivisions. I get what people say about the lyrics being more prose than poetry, but to me they're accurate and descriptive and set up a narrative structure for the music that builds anticipation and releases it climactically with a section that really soars. I also think the keyboard solo is one of the finest moments of synth work in the Rush catalog. I also grew up in Florida, and saw a number of launches over the years. I was entranced by NASA, manned spaceflight, and the hope of becoming an astronaut. I do surely hope that the US will return to the pursuit of manned spaceflight soon. Though it is expensive, it is one of the noblest pursuits of humankind. If we would only shift away from so much military spending, I think we could afford it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khan Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Always loved it...gives me chills. Technology - high, on the leading edge of life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rollthebones1963 Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 never saw a shuttle launch live,but i did see the last manned rocket blast off in 1977.my uncle was a doctor at nasa for like 15 years.he has money that went to the moon.visiting nasa was one of the greatest thrills of my life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Undemanding Contact Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 (edited) QUOTE (trenken @ Jul 9 2011, 03:49 PM)Shame that we have to rely on them though for all future space missions. It will not be for all future missions. There will be a hiatus of a few years while NASA get their act together and get Shuttle's successor on the road (or in space, to be more accurate). Unfortunately, it seems that NASA have been dithering around for decades about what exact form the successor to the Shuttle should take, and it is still not clear (to me, at least) what they will settle on. What seems certain, however, is that they have dumped the 're-usable space-plane' concept because (it would seem) the idea was just too hard, too costly, and too risky to pull off. The corollary to this is that, had they not gone for such a flawed design in the first place, the Shuttle would have been a hell of a lot cheaper, a lot more re-usable, and less likely to have been marred by tragedy. Ultimately, though, the real stumbling block is our current propulsion-technologies. To put it bluntly, they suck. If you juxtapose a few Olympic-sized swimming pools of liquid hydrogen with an equivalent amount of liquid oxygen, and then throw a lighted match into the mix, it really can get you into orbit, but it is also likely to blow you apart instead - witness the Challenger accident. What we really need is some kind of radically new approach to propulsion, whereby we high-tail it round the solar system without the use of rockets, and a lot quicker than we do currently. (Roger Shawer's EmDrive is one idea here - assuming that there is substance to that exceedingly controversial concept.) Regarding Countdown: I always felt the same about the lyrics as some others here - they are just a flat, narrative description, and, for me, were always a big disappointment. I have never been that happy with the melody side of the song either, aside from the riff that comes in periodically, which I loved from the off. Essentially, Countdown always struck me as an excellent riff in search of a decent song. Anyhow, whatever the case about the Shuttle and Countdown, I vote we lobby the-powers-that-be to make sure that the first person on Mars is a dyed-in-the-wool Rush nut, who whistles The Spirit of Radio as he/she descends the ladder to step on the Red Planet for the first time. Who's with me? [Edited for silly typo] Edited July 10, 2011 by Undemanding Contact Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ancient Ways Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 I don;t live that far away and was surprised to see it was cleared for launch. The weather was absolutely shitty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 of the 7 Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 I wanted to see a Shuttle launch most of my life, and came close soooo many times, but it wasn't to be. Countdown is one way to imagine being there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lerxster Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 As Seen On RIAB: This past Friday, July 8th the very last space shuttle of NASA's Shuttle Program took off from Cape Canaveral, FL. To mark this historic event, Spinner magazine compiled a list of the top 10 Space Shuttle wake-up songs and Rush's Countdown topped the list at #1: Canada brought more to the Shuttle Program than the Canadarm, and it came in the form of a Rush song. The iconic Canuck prog-rockers' 1982 single 'Countdown' was wholly inspired by Columbia's first trip in 1981, the first of the Shuttle Program. The song even samples audio from this launch and was played to wake up the crew on Columbia's 27th flight in 2002, on the day the shuttle landed back on Earth for the last time. So it's a pretty perfect pick to complete our wake-up song countdown as NASA's space shuttle program enters T-Minus Zero. It's times like this (and others) that we could use a Shuttle smiley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger J Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 QUOTE (chrxtopher @ Jul 9 2011, 11:31 PM) ... with a section that really soars. I also think the keyboard solo is one of the finest moments of synth work in the Rush catalog. THIS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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