AEROSMITH: CDs In Space

August 28, 2006

"Toys in the Attic" and "Rocks" are hailed as career-defining works for AEROSMITH that stand among rock's pivotal albums. You can now add another description to each album's legacy: "gravity-defying." CD copies of both albums were recently taken into outer space by astronaut pilot Mark E. Kelly who was on board the Space Shuttle Discovery, a 13-day, 8.5 million-kilometer trip to the International Space Station in July.

A lifelong AEROSMITH fan, "I met Steven [Tyler] at a couple of events and I mentioned to him that I could fly with a couple of CDs," says Kelly. "I asked him if he wanted me to take his favorite AEROSMITH CDs into space. This was a huge honor for me."

In addition to the "Toys in the Attic" and "Rocks" albums floating around in the spaceship, Kelly (for whom this Shuttle Discovery ride marked his second space mission) rocked selections from AEROSMITH's catalog on his MP3 player. "Everyone aboard the flight heard 'Janie's Got A Gun', which is on my iPod, and it was blasting out of the speakers. Sounded pretty cool up there." The CDs were returned to Tyler and bandmate Tom Hamilton upon Kelly's arrival back to earth.

Tyler said, "Having spent most of the '70s and part of the '80s on the dark side of the moon myself — just for inspiration, mind you — I'm not surprised that the magic in those recordings lifted them to such heights. Having risen to the top of the charts myself, being weightless and docking with the Space Station seems fitting."

Tyler flew to Florida to be on hand for blast-off, but the Shuttle couldn't leave July 1 or 2 because of the weather, launching instead on July 4, "which was neat for us but unfortunate for some of our guests who couldn’t stay," says Kelly. Tyler had to fly back to Boston to rehearse and then perform on CBS-TV's "Boston Pops", during which they performed such AEROSMITH classics as "Dream On", "Walk This Way" and "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" with the Boston Pops orchestra.

Says Kelly: "I remember on launch day, as we were getting suited up, seeing a TV spot for Steven and Joe to perform on the Boston Pops show. That definitely put me in the mood to fly the AEROSMITH CDs up into space."

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).