Houston, we have a pop band. The hit U.K. boy band One Direction unveiled its latest music video "Drag Me Down" and it has a decisively out-of-this-world vibe thanks to NASA.
In the music video, One Direction's Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are shown training for a space mission at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, home base for the space agency's astronaut corps. The four don bright orange NASA spacesuits, meet the awesome humanoid robot Robonaut 2, and climb inside a mockup of the new Orion space capsule, which made its maiden voyage last year in an unmanned flight atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket.
But wait, space fans. There's more.
It looks like the One Direction also took NASA's new Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle for a spin and made a pit stop at Ellington Field, an airstrip near the Johnson Space Center that houses the T-38 supersonic jets used by astronauts to fly across the country.
Like real-life astronauts, One Direction's training all adds up to a main event, with the band climbing inside an Orion spacecraft and launching (atop a blue and white version of the normally yellow-orange Delta IV Heavy booster) into space for destinations unknown.
While I admit, I'm no die-hard One Direction fan (more of a David Bowie, "Space Oddity" kind of guy), the sheer production value of "Drag Me Down" and its depiction of space exploration are top-notch.
I may be dating myself, but the last time I personally remember NASA joining forces with a popular band for a music video, it was Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing." And of course that one had Bruce Willis in it. And an asteroid. (I loved "Armageddon.")
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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