Here he is, sitting in a tin can, far above the world and saying goodbye to David Bowie.
Messages of condolence for the late rock star flowed in on Monday from around the world and from space, where British astronaut Tim Peake tweeted from the International Space Station.
“Saddened to hear David Bowie has lost his battle with cancer — his music was an inspiration to many,” Peake wrote on Monday.
The outer-space tribute seemed fitting. Unique and otherworldly, Bowie often seemed like a creature from another planet, the “Starman” of one of his 1970s hits.
The cosmos fascinated him from his first big hit, “Space Oddity.” Released in 1969, the year of the first moon landing, it told the story of Major Tom, an astronaut adrift, “sitting in my tin can, far above the world.”