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Is this possibly an unintended reveal of the Austrian Space Agency’s (so far) super secret involvement in that USAFA experiment onboard the ISS?!


🛰
A tribute to the late Johann ‘Hans’ Hölzel, better known by his stage name Falco, whose 1985 hit Rock Me Amadeus was the only German-speaking song to date that ever reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart?
Imagine a day in 2019 or 2020 - the exact date is clouded in secrecy.
Suddenly, the United States Air Force Academy phone rings. A cadet picks up.
“
Vienna Calling, here.
Der Kommissar. We would like to suggest a code name for that future neuromorphic camera experiment in space, to honour the memory of Austria’s biggest pop star! His stage name would be the perfect choice, as he even sang about space tech back in 1988”.
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OMG, this missing letter ‘n’ and the ensuing chain of thoughts just triggered heaps of memories - from an open air Falco concert at the Bregenz floating opera stage (on Lake Constance), to controversial lyrics and boycotts by radio stations (native speakers of German may recall
Jeanny) and mixtape nostalgia.
For those of you who weren’t teenagers (or their parents) in the 1980s, when cassette tapes were SOTA, the video below is a good explanation of the labour of love that went into these works of art, the creation of which took a lot of time and patience (as you had to sit in front of the radio for hours, hoping specific songs would be played) as well as intense prayers for radio DJs not to talk into the eagerly awaited songs’ intro or fade-out. Equally nerve-wrecking were family members spoiling the recording, both inadvertently and intentionally. Add in the time spent on hand-writing the song list and creating a cover to go along with the tape’s theme (in case there was one).
Besides making personalised playlists for self-use (to this day, I can’t bear parting with the testimony of my youth’s soundtrack), they were the ultimate musical gift for best friends, secret crushes, lovers etc. And apparently some people even went to great lengths in compiling songs as a poisoned parting gift (incidentally, Gift is the German word for poison

) for their ex-partner. So much reading between the lines. Truly a lost art in the age of YouTube, Spotify, Amazon and Apple Music.
My Google search for some info on mixtapes for the clueless digital natives also surfaced this excellent write-up for those wanting to go down memory lane:
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/music/never-mind-spotifyremember-the-lost-art-of-the-mixtape-98d03060