Queen and Bowie Just Woke Up the First Moon Crew in 50 Years

There are alarm clocks, and then there is “Under Pressure” blasting through the speakers of a spacecraft 250,000 miles from home.

On Wednesday morning, the four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion capsule started their eighth day in space with one of the greatest rock collaborations ever recorded. Queen and David Bowie’s 1981 masterpiece served as the Day 8 wake-up call for the Artemis II crew, and if you were going to pick a single track to soundtrack humanity’s return to lunar orbit, you could do a whole lot worse.

The Artemis II mission launched on April 1 from Kennedy Space Center, sending commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day voyage around the moon and back. Earlier this week the crew completed their lunar flyby, becoming the first astronauts to loop around the far side of the moon in more than half a century. They traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history, reaching a maximum distance of 252,756 miles. They photographed earthsets through the Orion window and witnessed the far side of the moon in daylight with their own eyes.

And every morning, Mission Control in Houston has been beaming up a song to get them moving.

The wake-up call tradition dates back more than 50 years to the Apollo program. The Apollo 10 crew got Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. Apollo 15 had a sense of humor and went with the “2001: A Space Odyssey” theme. Brian Odom, NASA’s chief historian, has said the agency uses the musical wake-up calls as a way to keep everybody on schedule and to remind the crew of home. When you are further from Earth than any human being has ever been, a three-minute song is a tether to everything you left behind.

The Artemis II playlist, which NASA dropped publicly on Spotify on Wednesday, is a beautifully eclectic mix. Day 1 kicked off with “Sleepyhead” by Young and Sick, a cover of the Passion Pit track that could not have been more perfectly titled. Day 2 brought John Legend and Andre 3000’s “Green Light.” Day 3 was “In a Daydream” by the Freddy Jones Band. Day 4 saw Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” get beamed to the moon, though the crew reportedly gave Mission Control some grief because the song got cut off before the good part. Day 5 was CeeLo Green’s “Working Class Heroes (Work).” Day 6 brought “Good Morning” by TobyMac and the late Mandisa, who passed away in 2024. Day 7 featured “Tokyo Drifting” by Glass Animals and Denzel Curry. And then Day 8 delivered the knockout punch.

“Under Pressure” is one of those songs that transcends its own legend. Recorded during an impromptu session at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, it paired Freddie Mercury’s volcanic vocal power with Bowie’s cool, theatrical precision over one of the most recognizable basslines in rock history. Released as a single in October 1981 and later included on Queen’s “Hot Space” album, it topped the UK charts and cracked the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is about the weight of living, about watching the world crack under the strain of its own contradictions, and about the stubborn insistence that love might be the only thing that holds it all together. If that is not a fitting anthem for four people hurtling through the void in a tin can, nothing is.

Brian May was clearly moved. The Queen guitarist, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics and has spent decades straddling the worlds of rock and science, took to Instagram to share his reaction. He wrote that he was honored to be waking up the heroes in their spaceship as they rounded up their trip around the moon, adding “Happy Landings guys!! You rock!!!”

The ripple effects back on Earth have been significant. According to Spotify, “Sleepyhead” by Young and Sick saw a 2,100 percent increase in global streams after being revealed as the Day 1 pick. CeeLo Green’s track spiked more than 1,700 percent. The artists themselves have been losing their minds. Young and Sick wrote that his life would never be the same. Denzel Curry declared himself the first rapper played in space. Even Spotify’s official account jumped in, commenting that “the taste is impeccable.”

With two days left before Orion splashes down off the coast of San Diego on Friday, there are still a couple more wake-up songs to be revealed. Past crews have traditionally closed out with Dean Martin’s “Going Back to Houston,” but this crew has already proven it has its own ideas about what belongs on the playlist.

What sticks with you about the “Under Pressure” pick is how right it feels. Bowie spent his entire career using space as a metaphor for isolation and wonder. Mercury spent his turning human fragility into something enormous and defiant. Neither of them lived to see humans return to the moon. But on a Wednesday morning in April 2026, their voices traveled further than either of them probably ever imagined, waking four people who were doing something no one had done in over 50 years.

Rock and roll has always been about defying gravity. Sometimes literally.