Atlantis Crew Awakened by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe

Today’s wakeup song was ‘Man on the Moon,” by Michael Stipe of R.E.M., played at 1:29 a.m. EDT, which included a special message from Stipe: “Good morning, Atlantis. This is Michael Stipe from R.E.M. We wish you much success on your mission and thank all the women and men at NASA who have worked on the shuttle for three decades. From Earth, a very good morning to you.”

Stipe provided the following information:

“I recorded ‘Man On The Moon’ for NASA in Venice, Italy, where Galileo first presented to the Venician government his eight-power telescope, and in 1610 wrote ‘The Starry Messenger'(Sidereus Nuncius), an account of his early astronomical discoveries that altered forever our view of our place in the universe.” –Michael Stipe, July 2011

Atlantis and Expedition 28 crews are about halfway done transferring equipment and supplies from the shuttle middeck and the Raffaello multi-purpose module to the International Space Station. They will continue that work today, field questions from reporters, and enjoy some well deserved time off.