But one has to remember that in 1983 these guys practically invented independent music. And their early hits stand up quite well thank you. To say nothing of all the bands they have influenced down the years. I’m looking at you Decemberists.

So, dig it:

So, this dude, Reid Gower, decided that NASA does a pretty poor job of promoting itself and took it upon himself to school the geeks over there on how to, you know, make space exploration sexy again. Very simple really, take the voice of the late, beloved Carl Sagan from his Cosmos TV series and mash it up with some of the better video of recent decades. Done.

Carl Sagan of course is known universally to Americans of a certain age who were either depending on your outlook at the time forced or allowed to watch Cosmos in school in the early 1980′s. Cosmos is available to watch for free online at Hulu and Netflix. If you have children in the 12-16 year age range do yourself and them a favor and sit down with them – bind them to the couch and prop their eyes open Clockwork Orange style if you must – and watch this with them. It is probably the best eight hours you will ever spend with them in terms of making them smart people.

Gower has since made a second video in the same series. Check them out on Facebook.

A couple of quick things on our domestic space program, ’cause this is a politics and policy blog after all. The entirety of the NASA budget for FY 2009 was $17.3 billion. Yes that sounds like and it IS a lot of money. However, this is sixth-tenths of one percent (.6 %) of the Federal Budget and is less than one tenth of the Defense Department budget and barely one fifth of the amount spent on agricultural crop subsidies. This budget includes the manned space program as well as a goodly amount of support for Department of Defense space operations.

As for manned space exploration, the difficulties of placing and sustaining people in space are huge. It turns out that people, while perfectly suited to walk around naked on most of their home planet, die within seconds above about 45,000 feet unless supported by 10,000 years’ worth of technological progress and millions of dollars worth of equipment. This kind of thing is probably something that should mostly be done away with on the individual nation-state level. We are no longer in any kind of space race and in tough economic times, we can’t really afford that kind of nationalistic chest-thumping. This kind of space program should be shared with like-minded nations (Japan, the Europeans, Russians, Indians and Brazillians to name just a few) in order to spread the cost. It would also be quite beneficial from a brotherhood-of-man, were-all-one-planet standpoint.

As for unmanned exploration, there can be no question that the billions that have been expended on Earth imaging and communications satellites has been money well-spent. And the robotic probes at a few million a pop? Well, I’ll leave you with these and you decide for yourself.

This enhanced color image of Saturn eclipsing the Sun was taken by the Cassini Probe. Earth is visible as a tiny dot between the outer ring and the inner ring in the upper left. Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This scene was recorded on the surfance of Saturn's moon, Titan, by ESA's Huygens probe after a 2 1/2 hour descent through a thick atmosphere of nitrogen laced with methane. Bathed in an eerie orange light at ground level, rocks strewn about the scene could well be composed of water and hydrocarbons frozen solid at an inhospitable temperature of - 179 degrees C (-290 F). Scientists hypothesize that the early Earth had an atmosphere of a similar composition, albeit much warmer. At 832 million miles from Earth, Titan is the most distant object that humans have ever landed upon and imaged. Source: European Space Agency.

Got two links for awesome Christmas mashups for you. Totally free y’all.

Santastic V

Last year’s A Very Bootie Christmas. Brought to you by the fabulous folks at Bootie USA. I highly recommend, “High Tides and Blocked Peace Pipes,” and “Yuletide Zepplin,” which is exactly what you think it is, but awseomer. Just follow the links on the page to a treasure trove of non-Xmas bootastic mashup goodness.

This year’s model is Santastic V and it comes complete with videos. Dig “Rudolf (You Don’t Have To Put On The Red Light)”

Director, Robert Rodriguez, (El Mariachi, Spy Kids, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City) pulls together an all-star cast to mess with Arizona’s new immigration law.

H/T Sully.

The Flaming Lips have been around since forever. I remember seeing them at the now-gone but legendary Crow’s Nest in Iowa City in the early 1980′s when they were just a moderatly interesting, albeit fun alt-rock band. When I worked at KRUI, they cut a cool faux-rap station ID. They were amusing, but forgettable.

Flash forward to 1990. I had just come back from Eastern Europe and was flopping in a house in De Kalb and somone played In A Priest-Driven Ambulance. It blew my mind and I asked who the band was. When I was told it was the Flaming Lips, I couldn’t believe it.

Since then they have released one trippy album after another. Some have more catchy tunes than others but all are magnificently produced, interesting and often quite tender. One of my favorite bands of all time. “Do You Realize,” is one of my favorite songs. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots came out in 2002, just as my oldest daughter, Molly was getting interested in music and listening to music with Daddy. I used to play this song for her and it remains, “Our Song.”