“God of Wonders” in Orbit and Afghanistan

Traditionally, Space Shuttle crews in orbit receive a musical “wake up call” at the end of their “sleep cycle” (“night” occurs every 90 minutes or so).  From the NASA website:

Wakeup calls are a long-standing tradition of the NASA program. Each day during the mission, flight controllers in the Mission Control Center will greet the crew with an appropriate musical interlude.  

Apparently, the music is chosen based on requests by the crew or their families.  This morning, the Atlantis crew awoke to “God of Wonders,” as performed by members of Third Day and Caedmon’s Call on the City on a Hill album, for astronaut Michael Good.  This morning’s transmission can be heard on NASA’s site.  After the song was played, Astronaut Mike Good said he looked forward to a productive day that would “bring glory to the Lord of all creation.”  From the transmission:

CAPCOM Shannon Lucid: Good morning, Atlantis, and a special good morning to you today, Mike Good.

Mission Specialist Mike Good:  Good morning, Houston, and thanks for lifting us up even higher with that song this morning.   We’re looking forward to going outside and working on Hubble and hopefully that will bring glory to the Lord of all creation.  And a special hello to Joanie, Brian, Jason, and Shannon who I’m sure will be watching along with me today.

CAPCOM Shannon Lucid:  Thanks a lot. We agree.

Apparently the song is a NASA favorite.  It was played in 2001 for Astronaut Steve Lindsey (here).  It was also the song played for Rick Husband, the commander of the ill-fated Columbia in 2003 (here).  Husband’s response to CAPCOM was “Boy, looking out the window, you can really tell He is the God of wonders, and we sure appreciate being able to take a look out and enjoy the view.”  (Ironically, Lennon’s Imagine was also played on that mission.) The song was also previously played for Michael Fossum on Discovery in 2006, seen here.  It was played for Dominic Gorie on Endeavor in 2008 here, who said it was timed perfectly with the sunrise, and “the glory is apparent this morning.”

As a point of historical reference, when the Astronauts of Apollo 8 read from Genesis regarding creation (after being the first men to see the Earth rise over the moon), NASA was sued, as previously noted.

With regard to the band Third Day, news reports indicate that they may head to Afghanistan to entertain the troops there.  Third Day has previously participated in a USO tour to the Persian Gulf.