Beyonce, NASA Slam Over 'XO' Music Video & New Album Using Shuttle Tragedy Audio [VIDEOS]
Current and former NASA astronauts called Beyonce "insensitive" for sampling audio from the space shuttle Challenger disaster in a love song off her newly released album, according to Good Morning America.
Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center Jan. 28, 1986. All seven crewmembers aboard were killed.
"Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction," now-retired NASA public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt said as the nation watched wreckage fall toward the ocean on live television.
Nesbitt's voice is now heard, 27 years later, at the beginning of the music video for Beyoncé's new song XO, about a troubled relationship. The audio clip is short, lasting six seconds.
NASA employees, Challenger family members and others argue that using it in a pop song is inappropriate considering the space crew's sacrifice. June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger Space Shuttle Commander Dick Scobee, told ABC News she is "disappointed" in Beyonce's decision to include the audio.
"The moment included in this song is an emotionally difficult one for the Challenger families, colleagues and friends," she said. "We have always chosen to focus not on how our loved ones were lost, but rather on how they lived and how their legacy lives on today."
Keith Cowing, a former NASA employee who now runs the NASAWatch.com website, said, "This choice of historic and solemn audio is inappropriate in the extreme." He wants Beyoncé to remove the clip and apologize to families of the Challenger crew.
Retired NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson told the news outlet, "For the words to be used in the video is simply insensitive, at the very least." However, he did acknowledge, "What we do in space just isn't as important to young people today,"
In an exclusive statement to ABC News on Monday, Beyonce said, "My heart goes out to the families of those lost in the Challenger disaster. The song XO was recorded with the sincerest intention to help heal those who have lost loved ones and to remind us that unexpected things happen, so love and appreciate every minute that you have with those who mean the most to you."
"The songwriters included the audio in tribute to the unselfish work of the Challenger crew with hope that they will never be forgotten," she added.
Beyoncé was born in Houston, home to NASA's astronaut training campus, the Johnson Space Center.
