In 2013, space-exploration found its way back into popular culture. While the Mars One mission began assembling its crew for the controversial one-way trip, rock's Starman par-excellence David Bowie broke his ten-year silence with new album The Next Day, which once again featured tracks that directly dealt with man's fascination with the confines of the Universe. The movie world saw the return of one of the most successful franchises ever in Star Trek, with J.J. Abrams captaining yet another incursion into "the final frontier". It was Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity however, that really marked a milestone in the space subgenre, transporting the audience to a cold and silent vacuum of death in a tale that could easily have been based on Felix Baumgartner's worst nightmares. Ben Stiller's take on Walter Mitty made great use of Bowie's seminal Space Oddity, and in Inside Llewyn Davies the Coen Brothers gave us a fun song that accurately portrayed the space-obsessed zeitgeist of the 60s. Space has always left man flabbergasted, and this is evident when we take a look at all the 20th century art that revolved around this subject. In a moment, we will explore the unlikely but prolific marriage between space and modern popular music. Commencing countdown, engines on...