Picture courtesy of : http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/index.html

So what’s this heat about Astronomy in a Celtic music blog? Find out more as I write about Astronaut  Cady Coleman with my special guest, Irish musician Martin Tourish.

I worked hard on my Robert Burns zeen that I just realize I have prepared nothing today. So I am just meandering through words and phrases and even creeping at the status posts all over facebook and Google + to find a spark of inspiration. Hey, I just realized something. I was having an interesting conversation with young genius Martin Tourish a few weeks ago about Astronomy. I was planning to write and article about it. I even asked him if he is interested in contributing an essay. But Martin is wrapped up in the mastering of his new album that I guess this is much of a bother although he always responds to shout outs. So I will take it from here. So glad that I still have the photos he showed me about an Irish American astronaut who played music in space. Yes yes you got it. She played a wooden flute and all sorts of flute up there in space!

First of all, I love Astronomy. From space explorations, black holes, galaxies and even quasars-you  name them all, I will devour anything about space like a greedy black hole, that no humor can even escape haha. I found out I am not the only one who is crazy about the subject. Most of the traditional Irish musicians I interviewed are also fascinated with the same thing.

History tells us that the Celts were fascinated with astronomy and they used the stars as guides on their journeys. Heavenly bodies like the Pleiades and the red giant Aldebaran or the eye of the bull held special meaning to them. So it is not surprising that modern Celts became astronauts. Cady Coleman is one fine example!

Traditional Irish music has now boldly gone where no trad musician has gone before-even in space. So we were talking and then the topic about Cady Coleman popped up. I also read that she is also called by the name Katy,  Cady and Catherine.

Martin said,  ” I was very lucky to meet astronaut Katy Coleman a good few times. She was on the international space station – we’d some great conversations. I’m a huge fan of Stephen Hawkings!” (Down below is a picture taken from the page of Tim Edey. He actually gave me his blessing to use this one picture).

Leaving London and saying goodbye to legendary Nasa astronaut and fine flautist Cady Coleman and young genius Martin Tourish. Photo by Tim Edey.

He further added: ” I got to wear the jacket she wore in space – you missed that photo on my Facebook pictures!” I saw it indeed. “What an amazing meeting. She’s lovely – have you seen the clip of her playing Irish music in space?”

I told him no. So he sent me the the link to the clip and here it is: