Astronauts....AWAKE!!!!

Factual Questions
1

Every few months or so NASA sends up a space shuttle. As a proud American and a taxpayer, I like to turn to my local network TV or radio to learn about the nature of these voyages as well as the benefits and knowledge we can expect to garner from these highly expensive and dangerous flights. I know most networks can only devote a minute or minute and a half to the space story. Invariably, however, a significant portion of the news coverage of each day in space will not center on experiments run, rockets launched or telescopes aimed, but will instead focus on the strange ritual of the music played to wake the astronauts up that morning. This brings to mind several questions:

  1. Do they really wake the astronauts up this way? I somehow find it comical to picture all the astronauts slumbering away in the shuttle only to have mission control jolt them with “Moon River”, “Starman”, or some other space-themed piece of music as a wake-up call. Or is the truth, as I suspect, that this whole bit is strictly a PR moment that the astronauts play along with to help the media have some diverting intro for their story?

  2. If PR, why does the media buy into it? Surely a flight into space has enough interesting, newsworthy, and provocative aspects that there should be little room in a minute and a half story for a puff piece. Furthermore, this particular musical moment seems to make absolutely no impact on the public. I challenge anyone here to remember what songs were used as wake-up calls for the astronauts during this past week’s shuttle flights. In the decades of space program coverage I have NEVER heard anyone discuss the astronaut’s wake-up music. Yet there it is over and over in the news. Why???

The past week’s shuttle flight was very photogenic-with several exciting shots of spacewalking astronauts repairing the space station. This is an exception. Unless a flight has astronauts actually outside the shuttle we rarely know anything of the mission. I don’t know any of the results of any of the experiments conducted on the previous shuttle trip. I think the public would be interested in them.

So, is there anyone out there with NASA-knowledge to help me understand what’s the story regarding this musical wake-up call mystery, and why it receives such a high percentage of the coverage on TV and radio?

2

Don’t they sleep in shifts? There’s always something to do on the shuttle.

3

It’s a little bit PR, and a little bit of a morale boost. The astronauts often pick songs they like, so they can get “pumped up” for the days work.

As to the media covering interesting stories, are you kidding? Think back to the lunar program. Once the excitement of Apollo 11 wore off, the networks immediately lost interest in covering any real stories about the space program. Of the later missions, only a few things caught the media eye:
(1) Apollo 13, 'cause they were in danger
(2) Apollo 14, when Shepard hit a golf ball
(3) Apollo 15, with the lunar rover.

Thanks to 24 news stations, we at least get some space coverage on TV. But they still need that puffy PR piece to give the newsanchors something to laugh about.