On April 5 at 2:00 a.m., I found myself wide awake in a house full of sleeping family members, trying my hardest to sneak a giant telescope downstairs. Leading up to my midnight stealth mission to the backyard, I was restlessly doomscrolling when I went down a rabbit hole of information about the recent Artemis II mission.
I’ve loved space and anything related to NASA for a long time. When I was in high school, it became a nightly routine for me to grab a blanket, put on my headphones, and stargaze in the backyard for hours. While the University of Central Florida is far from the dark skies I grew up with, whenever I get the chance to stare at a supermoon or spot my favorite constellations above my apartment, I’m still filled with the same comfort I used to get lying on dewy grass and waiting for my mom to call me inside.
In the first hours of the morning, I finally set up my telescope without waking anyone. I felt like I was 16 again as I caught myself worrying my parents would scold me for staying up too late. Part of me felt guilty about missing the Artemis II launch because of the growing pile of homework I had. That guilt led me to the cold patch of grass and the even colder machinery of my telescope at 2:00 in the morning.
“Heroes” by David Bowie echoed through my earbuds while I took in the view of the moon. I spent the next 30 minutes standing outside, switching between looking at the moon and star clusters while my playlist ran its course. It was the same playlist that I’ve had since I was 16—a perfect mix of classic rock and bedroom pop that I have never gotten tired of. It’s hard to think of a time that I’m more enthusiastic or carefree than when I’m staring at the night sky. All I could think about was the astronauts going farther than any human had gone before, while I sat between wet grass and cool cement, listening to old songs they all had probably heard and even sung along to at one point or another.
The sounds and symphonies of Project Hail Mary
A few days later, I saw Project Hail Mary in theaters and felt even more giddy and excited. It felt like a movie made just for me; it featured a little alien who spoke in symphonies, songs by Harry Styles, the Beatles, and Ella Fitzgerald, and a deep space setting. Two things that I am most passionate about in this life are music and space, so it’s no surprise that I cried in the theater, leaving with a renewed passion for both. I was amazed by how incredible the movie was and how, despite the overall stressful life-or-death mission to save our solar system’s dying sun, there was still an unexpectedly heartfelt happy ending. The story wasn’t a typical action-packed sci-fi movie; it was about hope, connection, and how empathy can save us. The way music was used in the film was truly captivating. Every song, whether I knew it or not, made me feel the same connection to the characters that I felt when thinking about the Artemis II crew as they were heading back home to Earth.
I kept having these moments, both in the theater and during the Artemis II mission, where I felt an intense pride in humanity. Hearing Artemis II pilot Victor Glover say, “In all of this emptiness… you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together,” put into perspective how similar we all are. His choice of words in “we get to exist together” serves as a reminder that our lives and what we make of them, not only individually, but as a people, are a gift that we are beyond lucky to live out. We’ve all experienced the lows of sadness and the highs of joy. All of us either have or will experience embarrassment in pursuit of human connection because it’s what we’re meant to do.
What a gift it is to be able to laugh with a stranger in a grocery line. What a gift it is to be united in the agony of a grueling math class with people you have nothing in common with—other than your shared disdain for statistics. What a gift it is to cry with a grieving friend or to play a song for someone you love. Every feeling, good or bad, we get to feel with other people is a uniquely unifying experience. And while the story of Project Hail Mary is fictional, the bond between Grace and Rocky was a moving display of humanity’s empathy and of how it can manifest in surprising ways.
“Under pressure” in Outer space
When I heard the wake-up song for the Artemis II crew on April 8, it took me a minute to rein in my unexpected emotions as lyrics from “Under Pressure” by Queen & David Bowie rang out from a slightly staticky broadcast.
“Why can’t we give ourselves one more chance? Why can’t we give love, give love, give love?”
After hearing the crew’s heartfelt words about what it was like to gaze at Earth in its entirety, I felt the weight of the lyrics pounding in my chest. Space exploration gives us a chance to find someone or something else to connect with, whether that comes from finding life on other planets or realizing how special and rare the life we have on our planet is.
“’Cause love’s such an old-fashioned word,”
As the music played, I couldn’t get over how perfect the song was for the task at hand. Another quote from Glover was brought to mind: “I would like to remind you of one of the most important mysteries on Earth, and that’s love.”
“And love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night,”
Sending a group of astronauts as far from Earth as they could get, ironically, felt like a uniting force that brought mankind closer together. Even if it was just for a moment, families, friends, and strangers gathered around TVs, laptops, and phones to watch the crew make their way to the moon and check off each day until their return.
“And love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves,”
The song echoed as thousands of little kids watched in wonder while dressed in astronaut costumes and head-to-toe NASA merchandise, as dreams of going to space were planted in the minds of the future. Artemis II Astronaut Christina Koch made a sincere statement as the crew made their journey home: “We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.”
I never thought that two seemingly unconnected passions of mine, music and space, could be so aligned. I’ve always viewed music as an intimate and personal way to communicate. Whether it’s by sharing a playlist with someone I love, learning a song on the guitar, or putting together lyrics and chords that will never grace an audience, I feel that music, no matter the genre or language, carries the human spirit with it through every beat and every note.
Long after Freddie Mercury and Bowie passed, their art found a new stage among the stars. Space exploration and research have a funny way of uniting us as we try our hardest to get as far away from Earth as possible. In our attempts to survey the vast mysteries of our universe, it has become apparent that without the love and dedication from people on Earth, exploration not only lacks purpose but also becomes impossible to achieve without the hopes of humankind propelling it forward.
Everyone in human history was born on this beautiful planet, and no matter how culturally different we may seem, we all spend our lives searching for connection. We all learn to communicate in some way. If we are lucky enough, we will spend the rest of our lives clawing at the chance to share parts of ourselves with other people.