Chris Hadfield is going back up -- on YouTube, not to space.
After launching his music career on May 12, 2013 with an out-of-this-world cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” the retired astronaut took down the music video this spring after a one-year agreement with the publisher of the song expired.
Now, Hadfield announced in a post on his website, the video is back up on YouTube, picking up where it left off at more than 23 million views.
“This time we have a new 2-year agreement, and it is there, for free, for everyone,” Hadfield wrote. “We’re proud to have helped bring Bowie’s genius from 1969 into space itself in 2013, and now ever-forward.”
Hadfield said there were no hard feelings when the video was taken down the first time. He called Bowie and his publisher “very gracious” when explaining the legal limbo the video was left in after the agreement.
“They had allowed his work, his intellectual property, to be made freely available to everyone for a year, and had in fact worked with us and the Canadian Space Agency to make it happen,” Hadfield said. “There was no rancour, and we removed it from YouTube to honour that agreement.”
Now, with the video once again circling the Earth, Hadfield thanked the people and space agencies that made the experience possible, including his son Evan and Bowie himself.
“For the countless others who have helped work to bring about a new era of exploration, the art of it sings to us all.”
