Soundtracking NASA's new Constellation Program: Great Space Songs You Haven't Heard a Million Times, Part 1

On April 6, there will even be a full simulation of a water landing using the Orion mock-up. With all this Orion hoopla, I've decided to dedicate this weekend's Lists of the Day to great space songs. But, in the spirit of taking a new approach (as NASA is doing with this exciting new program), I didn't want to just compile the same space classics you've heard countless times. So, there will be no "Rocket Man," no "Space Oddity" or "Across the Universe." No "Mr. Spaceman," "Also Sprach Zarathustra," or "Man on the Moon." And no "Space Truckin'," "Mothership Connection" or "Intergalactic Planetary." No doubt, those are all great songs, and you should still take your protein pills and put your helmet on. But you should also get ready for a new era of space travel, one soundtracked by space jams you're not sick of yet!

The Pixies frontman's delicate love song to black holes: "A gravity that slumbers / At the center of places named after numbers / A different kind of love ... She was right there all the time / Collapsing all the way ... Light beams disappear into her blackened hair / I wonder if they reappear?"

Undoubtedly one of the coolest songs I've ever heard, "Ride of Your Life" finds our hero Gift of Gab on an unstoppable mission to an outer space of enlightenment: "Enter into the spacecraft filling up / That won't touch back again 'til the job is done / Way outta the range of normal / So far where ya are that you no longer see the sun / It's a journey not of sight but sound / Ready or not, you're bound / To also embrace the light." As you listen, you can almost see the stars whipping past you as you make the jump to hip-hop hyperspace.