"NASA" is a song by American singer Ariana Grande. It is the third track on her fifth studio album, Thank U, Next (2019), which was released on February 8, 2019, via Republic Records. The song was written by Grande, Victoria Monét, Tayla Parx, and its producers Tommy Brown and Charles Anderson.
Upon release, "NASA" reached the top 20 in Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States. The song was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
Contents
Recording and production
"NASA", named after the U.S. space agency of the same name, was written by Ariana Grande, Victoria Monét, Tayla Parx and its producers Tommy Brown and Charles Anderson. Grande's vocals were recorded by at the Jungle City Studios in New York City. Serban Ghenea mixed the track, and Brendan Morawski and Billy Hickey engineered the track assisted by Sean Kline.
The track features a spoken introduction by Shangela, an American drag queen. She says, "One small step for woman, one giant leap for womankind", a variation on Neil Armstrong's quote, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Shangela has said of the origins of her contribution to the track: The song ['NASA'] was amazing, and when the song ended, she was like, 'What do you think?' And I was like, 'Oh girl, I live! I love it, and it's amazing! I'm already thinking of how I'm going to perform it for my drag number, when I do my version.' And she looked at me said, 'Your version?' And I said, 'I'm just going to put a fun intro on it for drag, and I'm going to be in a spacesuit with like space-Titties and I'm going to come out in a moon man suit and I'm going to lift the mask and say, 'This is one small step for woman, one giant leap for womankind.' And she was like, 'Oh my God! I love that!'