Another song written by NSS member Dr. Donny “Rocker” Deever has just been released. He writes:
This song by America 250 Band is dedicated to our patriotic friends and colleagues at the National Space Society. A best kept secret is that those who are working the hardest to help humanity become an inter-planetary species are also those who love their planet and their country the most.
“Ad Astra” is the motto of the National Space Society, and means “To the Stars!” This bold song was painstakingly composed to capture the true essence of that call, “Ad Astra,” and covers the future progress of humankind as it leaves the cradle of Earth and expands to the Moon, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, and beyond!
The song “Ad Astra” is just below. The lyrics appear in the video and are also reproduced below.
AD ASTRA (“TO THE STARS”)
Song Lyrics and Music by Dr. Donny “Rocker” Deever
[Intro]
Once we looked upward and wondered.
Now the heavens wait for our answer.
Ad astra, ad astra…
We’re becoming star dancers.
[Verse 1]
Earth is the cradle that carried our dreaming,
blue in the darkness, alive in the gleaming.
All that we treasure, all that we know,
taught us to wonder and taught us to go.
Not to abandon the home we were made in,
but to protect and enrich it, for we are its kin.
Our world is precious, yet one world alone
should not be the whole of the future we own.
[Pre-Chorus]
Lift every nation, every daughter and son;
the age of the many worlds has begun.
[Chorus] Ad astra! Ad astra!
Through the dark nights, together we rise.
Ad astra! Ad astra!
Carry Earth’s light into infinite skies.
Build where the new suns and new mornings glow;
From one planet’s cradle, a thousand homes grow.
Hand into hand, heart after heart—
Ad astra! To the stars… a new start!
[Verse 2]
Back to the Moon where the long shadows wander,
to build in the stillness and grow ever fonder.
Gardens beneath domes, warm lights in the stone,
children who see Earth and still call it home.
Then to Mars next where the red valleys widen,
raise sheltered cities with courage inside them.
Melt ancient water, let greenhouses shine;
make every hardship a teacher in time.
Out through the asteroids, iron and fire,
raw worlds of plenty for all we require.
Shape them to shipyards to burgs that revolve,
build without stripping where we evolved.
[Verse 3]
O’Neill saw great cylinders turning in sunlight,
rivers and forests beneath a curved skylight;
towns with their meadows, sustained by their grain,
Earthlike horizons with clouds and with rain.
Spin them for gravity, shield them with stone,
millions may flourish in worlds of their own.
Not cold machines, but cathedrals of green—
the grand High Frontier humanity dreamed.
[Pre-Chorus]
No limit of continents, border, or shore;
when wisdom builds worlds, life can become more.
[Chorus]
Ad astra! Ad astra!
Through the dark nights, together we rise.
Ad astra! Ad astra!
Carry Earth’s light into infinite skies.
Build where the new suns and new mornings glow;
from one planet’s cradle, a thousand homes grow.
Hand into hand, heart after heart—
Ad astra! To the stars… a restart!
[Bridge]
Callisto waits beyond Jupiter’s fury,
ice under starlight, a far quieter journey.
Titan wears amber and rivers run strange,
a world wrapped in weather where seasons still change.
Europa’s deep ocean and Enceladus’ bright snow
may guard living secrets we’re destined to know.
Explore them with reverence, protect what we find,
let wonder and wisdom advance intertwined.
The farther we travel, the more we must learn:
how closed gardens breathe, how the great engines burn;
how people stay healthy, how free cities thrive,
how distant communities do more than survive.
[Verse 4]
Someday a vessel as vast as a nation
will leave with a forest and new generations.
Grandchildren will finish what ancestors start
with Earth in their history and stars in their heart.
They’ll cross the long night toward a warm distant sun,
where oceans may shimmer and new rivers run.
And when they step down on an unexplored shore,
the cradle of Earth will have opened a door.
[Final Pre-Chorus]
We go for survival, discovery, peace;
to widen life’s chances and let knowledge increase.
We go so no single disaster can end
the long human story we’re called to extend.
Not someday forgotten, not dreams left afar—
Begin it together, wherever we are!
[Final Chorus]
Ad astra! Ad astra!
Let the whole human family rise!
Ad astra! Ad astra!
Carry our promise through infinite skies!
Moon into Mars, then new worlds far away;
Build the tomorrow we summon today.
Hand into hand, heart after heart—
Ad astra! To the stars… a new start!
Ad astra! Ad astra!
Let the bells of the High Frontier sound!
Ad astra! Ad astra!
Raise living worlds where no world had been found!
Guard our blue cradle, but answer the call;
The heavens are wide enough— wide enough for all!
Dream after dream, start after start—
Ad astra! To the stars… we depart!
[Final Refrain]
Build the great cities!
Sail the long night!
Carry our children!
Carry the light!
Earth was our beginning,
not the end of who we are.
Ad astra! Ad astra!
To the far stars!
[Outro]
From one planet’s cradle,
a thousand homes grow.
Ad astra.
We go.
