News
Space Shuttle Gets Laputa Anime Music Wakeup Call
posted on by Egan Loo
Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: The astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery woke up on Thursday at 9:21 a.m. Japan Time (on Wednesday at 7:21 p.m. CDT) to the sound of a trumpet — specifically, the "Hato to Shōnen" ("The Pigeons and a Boy") song from Laputa: Castle in the Sky film.
Per a long-standing tradition, flight controllers at NTV network, and the FNN news source posted the video feeds from Mission Control.
As a mission specialist on her first spaceflight, Yamazaki is responsible for all payload and transfer operations and tly operating the space shuttle's robotic arm. Not coincidentally, Yamazaki made a special guest appearance in an episode of Housuke Nojiri's science-fiction novel about a Japanese girl who becomes an astronaut.
Yamazaki is the second female Japanese astronaut after Chiaki Mukai, and one of two Japanese astronauts currently in space. Astronaut My Neighbor Totoro film, as sung by Noguchi's daughters and the other students at the Houston Japanese Language School.
Source: Jiji Press
Image © 1986 Nibariki • Tokuma Shoten
Naoko Yamazaki's photograph courtesy of NASA
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history