Harrison song wakes space shuttle astronauts

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Dec 13 (Reuters) - NASA, not often
recognized for pop sensibilities, played the George Harrison
song "Here Comes the Sun" to awaken the astronauts aboard space
shuttle Endeavour on Thursday.
The 58-year-old former Beatle died of cancer Nov. 29 as the
crew was preparing for its launch from Florida's Kennedy Space
Center. The version of the song played by Mission Control was
an instrumental version arranged by Harrison for the IMAX film
"Everest."
"In just a few days you'll be back on Earth, feeling the
warm sun on your faces," said Mission Control.
"It's a good reminder of how we should live our lives,
looking forward to all the things we have coming up, known and
unknown," said shuttle commander Dominic Gorie.
Actually, astronauts in space see the sun come up every 90
minutes, since that is how long it takes to circumnavigate the
planet traveling at 5 miles (8 km) per second.
Endeavour was supposed to launch on Nov. 29 but was delayed
by bad weather and technical concerns until Dec. 5 and is
scheduled to land on Monday.
Endeavour is docked to the International Space Station,
where it delivered a new crew and more than two tonnes of
provisions and supplies for their five-month stay.
The station's old skipper, American Frank Culbertson, is
scheduled formally to hand over command to the new skipper,
Russian Yury Onufrienko, in a ceremony on Thursday afternoon.
The crews actually swapped places last week, with the new
Expedition 4 crew moving into their space-station staterooms
and the Expedition 3 crew moving onto the shuttle, where
everyone sleeps upright floating against the bulkhead storage
lockers.
Culbertson and his crew mates, Russians Vladimir Dezhurov
and Mikhail Turin, have been on the station since August.
Onufrienko will lead a team of Americans, Carl Walz and
Daniel Bursch, until they return to Earth in May.
The transfer has been aided by the shuttle crew of Gorie,
Mark Kelly, Linda Godwin and Daniel Tana.