First Drummer in SpaceSolstar CEO, Brian Barnett (DrumsAstro) composed and performed a drum solo as a tribute to famed space author Frank White who wrote the important book, The Overview Effect. Over the last 30+ years, Frank White has interviewed a majority of astronauts and cosmonauts when they returned from Earth. They all have been changed by the experience of seeing our beautiful and fragile planet Earth from space. Dr. White was Barnett’s professor of space social sciences at the International Space University.

About this piece by M. Brian Barnett:

"Whenever we watch a professional athlete make a great play or watch a great musical act perform a song to precision, even though they make it look easy, what we are seeing is the result of years and years of preparation. Hours and hours of rehearsal. Years and years of practice. There are many similarities to building a space company like Solstar, and in accomplishing really difficult space missions.

I started playing and studying the drums when I was 7 years old, was in my first rock band when I was 10, and I performed my first drum solo in public during a talent show in 5th grade. I made extra money as a drum teacher from high school on through graduate school. I practiced pretty much every day for years and it paid off when I was chosen as an All-State percussionist in the State of Oklahoma during my sophomore, junior, and senior years of high school. I continued to practice more and more. I was selected to the drumline for the University of Oklahoma Marching Band and I played in professional orchestras. I studied under one of the most accomplished tympanists ever (Fred Hinger), and have been in many rock bands and reggae band. There were also a lot of rejections along the way, but I persevered.

The same is true for building a company. You start with a vision and you work every day, meticulously to make the company successful. You must practice every day. You must keep moving towards the goal, step-by-step. You must persevere, and you never give up. When you are an entrepreneur, the only person that can see the vision like you can is you. I have been rejected probably hundreds of times during my 20-year entrepreneurial career. But I have also experienced the great taste of success too. This is how I have to manage and build Solstar Space Company every day."

About this piece. The piece has three movements:

First Movement: Blast Off and Ascent When a rocket blasts off, the astronaut feels the most power and energy anyone can ever experience in life. In this movement, I try to mimic this feeling by playing with as much power and energy I can.

Second Movement: In space gazing down at Earth and experiencing the Overview Effect I came up with a fast reggae beat as a rhythm I might feel while floating in space and looking down at Earth

Third Movement: Coming back to Earth: Re-entry In this movement, I play syncopated rhythms in anticipation of returning to Earth finishing up with a dramatic crescendo on the cymbal.

The Overview Effect describes the cognitive shift in awareness that results from the experience of viewing Earth from orbit or the moon. He found that, with great consistency, this experience profoundly affects space travelers' worldviews - their perceptions of themselves and our planet, and our understanding of the future. White found that astronauts know from direct experience what the rest of us know only intellectually: we live on a planet that is like a natural spaceship moving through the universe at a high rate of speed. We are, in fact, the crew of Spaceship Earth; as Buckminster Fuller described our world.

The world premiere of this solo was played to an audience of space industry professionals during a weekly space industry Zoom forum hosted by Frank White every Wednesday since the start of the 2020 Pandemic.