Space



Sarah Brightman at a press conference at Ham Yard Hotel in London, where she admitted she struggles to explain why she wants to travel in space.

Sarah Brightman at a press conference at Ham Yard Hotel in London, where she admitted she struggles to explain why she wants to travel in space. Image by Philip Toscano/PA Wire

Sarah Brightman has reunited with her ex-husband Andrew Lloyd-Webber to write a song she can perform from space during a planned trip to the International Space Station.

The singer, who has been in training in Star City near Moscow, will take part in a tourist flight to the International Space Station on September 1 lasting 10 days.

She said singing in space was “very different” to performing on Earth and added she did not want to “promise too much” but told a central London press conference she hoped to sing from the spacecraft.

She said: “I have been working a little with my ex-husband Andrew Lloyd-Webber who’s actually come up with a most beautiful line but we’re just taking it slowly at the moment.”

She told reporters she wanted to sing from space in a duet with a performer on Earth.

She said: “We’re trying to work this out at the moment, we’re working on the music at the moment”, adding: “It’s finding a song that suits the idea of space.”

Brightman said she paid for the trip herself, but could not “contractually” say how much it cost.

She told reporters she struggles to explain why she wants to travel in space. She said: “I cannot explain in full why this has been something strong inside me.”

She admitted it seemed “unrealistic and crazy”, but said watching the first moon landing aged nine was “a pivotal moment” in her life.

She said: “It actually changed my perception about life. Suddenly my mind opened.

“For me to have got this far and have a taste of what I felt at that time and have a taste of the future is an amazing thing.”

Brightman revealed she had spoken to space travel veterans about the realities of space flight.

The Cats star, who scored a top 10 hit in 1978 with I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper, said she might do one of the moves from the hit track’s dance routine while she is up in space.

The singer said the idea of civilian space travel was “fast becoming a normality” and added that she hoped the journey would help her “understand everything better” about life on Earth.

(Press Association)