Produced by Gus Dudgeon and recorded at Trident Studios in London, it is a tale about a fictional astronaut named Major Tom; its title and subject matter were partly inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Bowie's feelings of alienation at that point in his career.

Knowing Love You till Tuesday did not have a guaranteed audience and would not feature any new material, Pitt asked Bowie to write something new to "demonstrate David's remarkable inventiveness".

[11] Other events in Bowie's life influenced the writing of "Space Oddity", including seeing the Apollo 8 Earthrise photograph in January 1969[12] and his break-up with the dancer Hermione Farthingale the following month.

[8] Similarly, James E. Perone views Major Tom acting as a "literal character" and a "metaphor" for individuals who are unaware of, or do not make an effort to learn, what the world is.

[7][24] Nicholas Pegg and Doggett compare the song's style, structure, lyrics and arrangement to those of the Bee Gees' 1967 single "New York Mining Disaster 1941", which has similar minor chords and chorus.

The session was produced by Jonathan Weston; Bowie and Hutchinson were joined by Colin Wood on Hammond organ, Mellotron and flute; Dave Clague on bass and Tat Meager on drums.

[33] Work on the album version of "Space Oddity" and its B-side, "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud", began at Trident Studios in London on 20 June 1969.

[34] The guitarist Mick Wayne of the British band Junior's Eyes and the keyboardist Rick Wakeman were brought on at Visconti's suggestion, while the composer Paul Buckmaster was hired to arrange the orchestra,[33] which consisted of eight violins, two violas, two cellos, two arco basses, two flutes and an organ.

[35] Dudgeon hired the bassist Herbie Flowers and the drummer Terry Cox of the folk band Pentangle,[36] while Bowie played acoustic guitar and Stylophone.

[34] Dudgeon outlined a plan for the Stylophone and Mellotron parts by scribbling notes on paper, later telling the biographer Paul Trynka: "When we hit that studio we knew exactly what we wanted – no other sound would do.

[33] Wakeman recorded his part in two takes after hearing the demo once;[35] he later said; "it was one of half a dozen occasions where it made the hair stand up on your neck and you know you're involved in something special.

[28] Dudgeon was paid £100 for his work on the two songs;[38] in June 2002, he instigated a lawsuit against Bowie claiming he did not receive the agreed two per cent of royalties for "Space Oddity".

[44] In his book The Complete David Bowie, Pegg opines that "Space Oddity" was destined to be remembered only as a novelty hit, as the year 1969 was full of similar tunes, from the Scaffold's "Lily the Pink" to Rolf Harris's "Two Little Boys".

Additionally, numerous space-themed songs had already charted by 1969, including Zager and Evans's "In the Year 2525", which was a UK number one in the three weeks immediately before "Space Oddity"'s entry into the top 40.

[8][64] The 1979 recording was released in a remixed form in 1992 on the Rykodisc reissue of Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps),[64][65] and in 2017 on Re:Call 3, part of the compilation A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982).

[87] During the 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour, Bowie sang "Space Oddity" while being raised and lowered above the stage by a cherry picker crane and used a radio microphone that was disguised as a telephone.

[93] He then performed it at the Tibet House US benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in February 2002; this new version includes an orchestra conducted by Visconti, with string arrangements played by Scorchio and Kronos Quartet.

In it, Bowie plays both the tee-shirt-wearing Ground Control character and Major Tom, who wears a silver suit, a blue visor and a breast plate.

[98][99] In the song, Major Tom is described as a "junkie" who is "strung out in heaven's high, hitting an all time low"[100] but Ground Control still believes he is doing as well as he was ten years prior.

[103] The idea for the song came from Pet Shop Boys member Neil Tennant, who informed Bowie he would be adding "Space Oddity"-related lines to the remix.

[105] The video, a surreal, ten-minute short film directed by Johan Renck, depicts a woman with a tail (Elisa Lasowski),[106] who discovers a dead astronaut and takes his jewel-encrusted skull to an ancient, otherworldly town.

"Space Oddity" has been covered by numerous artists, including Rick Wakeman and Terry Cox's band Pentangle; both men were performers on the original recording.

[81] The original single version is heard on the soundtrack of the 2004 film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers and a 2015 episode of the American drama series Mad Men.

It was also featured in a 2011 Renault Clio commercial and played on the radio of Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster during its launch aboard the Falcon Heavy's maiden flight in February 2018.

[174]"Space Oddity" was played throughout the opening montage for the 2017 film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which showed humans making contact with extraterrestrial life.

The director Luc Besson timed the sequences of the scene to the song's guitar chords, which took many hours, and the bass riff was used to signify humanity's first contact with aliens.

On Earth, Joe Corcoran produced and mixed the backing track with a piano arrangement by the multi-instrumentalist Emm Gryner, who worked with Bowie during his 1999–2000 concert tours.

[67] The lyrics were somewhat altered; rather than losing communication with Ground Control and being lost in space as a result, Major Tom receives his orders to land and does so safely, reflecting Hadfield's imminent return from his final mission to the ISS.

"[178] Bowie's social media team responded to the video, tweeting back to Hadfield, "Hallo Spaceboy ...",[178] and later called the cover "possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created".

[183] Pegg calls Hadfield's video is "Breathtakingly beautiful and extraordinarily moving, [and] offers a rare opportunity to deploy that overused adjective 'awesome' with complete justification".