For Larrive Guitars, the publicity was quite literally out of this world, and the dollar value from it continues to add up. <\/p>\n
Images of Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield playing its Vancouver-made Parlor guitar sparked enough interest for the company to put the model back into production for a limited edition. The company has $100,000 in orders already for the commemorative model, which will sell for about $1,200, said Matthew Larrive, general manager of the companys California shop. <\/p>\n
The three-quarter-size travel guitar, created and manufactured in the Vancouver factory of Larrive Guitars, spins around in front of the Canadian spaceman as he sings a modified version of David Bowies Space Oddity in a YouTube video that is believed to be the first music video made in space. <\/p>\n
The video is Hadfields farewell to outer space after five months sitting in a tin can, far above the Earth, as the first Canadian to command the International Space Station. <\/p>\n
The five-minute video has been viewed more than 14 million times since its release on May 12. Larrive said the publicity is invaluable for his company, which was founded in 1967 in Toronto but settled on the West Coast of Canada in 1977, and since 2001 also has a factory near Los Angeles in Oxnard, Calif. <\/p>\n
You couldnt ask for that kind of advertising, Larrive said. What Chris has done for that guitar, and for space in general, has been amazing. Chris is making space cool hes made this stuff accessible to the average person. <\/p>\n
Hadfield, 53, has been tweeting and posting photographs of Earth and videos from space on his trip to space, which was his third and reportedly last space station visit. He touched down to Earth in Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz capsule on May 13. <\/p>\n
Hadfield visited Larrives Vancouver shop in 2012 and said in a YouTube video filmed at that time that the guitar has made 50,000 trips around the globe. <\/p>\n
Its cool playing a guitar in space because it floats in front of you and you dont need a strap, Hadfield says in the video. One of the weirdest things is to float around the room and bump into things as youre playing. <\/p>\n
Hadfield said music is fundamental to the psychological well-being of astronauts, which is why NASA sought out a guitar for the ISS. <\/p>\n
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Astronaut Chris Hadfield\u2019s space station guitar built in Vancouver<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For Larrive Guitars, the publicity was quite literally out of this world, and the dollar value from it continues to add up. Images of Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield playing its Vancouver-made Parlor guitar sparked enough interest for the company to put the model back into production for a limited edition Continue reading