When the space shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas in February of 2003, NBC turned to legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, for perspective on the tragedy. As part of his comments, Buzz began to read a poem, until, overcome with emotion, he could not continue. What Buzz was reading from was actually the lyrics to a song from the new CD from Prometheus Music, To Touch The Stars — A Musical Celebration of Space Exploration.

The song was Fire In The Sky [click to listen now] by Dr. Jordin Kare. Buzz subsequently downloaded album tracks off the Internet, and was moved enough to offer his endorsement for the album.

"These are exciting, well-crafted, professionally-written songs in a variety of styles," says multi-instrumentalist Mark Ungar, who lent his expertise on electric guitar and sitar, vocals and guitar synthesizer to several of the tracks. "Everyone who was involved turned in great performances. It'll appeal to anyone who appreciates original songwriting and is inspired by the exploration of space."

The project grew out of a partnership between Prometheus, the Mars Society, and the National Space Society (NSS), which sponsored a "pro-space" songwriting competition, inviting "spacebards" to submit entries. "If we are to win the hearts and souls of humanity to the vision of a spacefaring future, the space exploration movement must also develop its songs," says Dr. Robert Zubrin, then chairman of the NSS Executive Committee and influential author of the international best-seller The Case For Mars.

"A few people have realized this, and so a subculture has emerged of space folk songs. But outside of performances at space and science fiction conventions, few people have heard this wonderful music". Zubrin was so convinced of the importance of this endeavor that he held a similar contest a couple of years later when he founded the Mars Society. The CD includes forewords by NSS Executive Director Brian Chase and Zubrin.

Tracks were penned and performed by a variety of musical luminaries. The soaring ballad Beyond the Sky was written by renowned singer/songwriter Judy Collins to honor astronaut Eileen Collins, first woman to command a space shuttle (here sung by Margaret Davis). New Folk legend Christine Lavin makes an appearance with her Nova-episode-in-8-minutes number If We Had No Moon, inspired by the documentary film of the same name by Martin Ives. Gunnar Madsen, a co-founder of the popular a capella group The Bobs, rips through stunning performances of Surprise! (a "Russian folk-song" about Sputnik) and the ska rave-up Dance On The Ceiling.

This CD incorporates actual recordings from Space Shuttle launches from Liftoff! The Sound of America's Space Shuttle Program. You can purchase Liftoff! from http://www.spacestore.com/.