Looks like not everyone is happy with Beyoncé's new album. Some current and former NASA astronauts have labeled the songstress "insensitive" for using audio of the space shuttle Challenger at the beginning of her video for "XO," ABC News reports.
Jan. 28, 1986, the nation watched live as the space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center and all seven crew members were killed.
"Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction," now-retired NASA public-affairs officer Steve Nesbitt said that day.
That clip of Nesbitt's voice can be heard at the beginning of the video for Beyoncé's new song about a troubled relationship. The singer has said that "XO" was written and produced by Ryan Tedder and Terius Nash, aka the Dream.
The clip, which last only six seconds, is causing a big fuss.
June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger Commander Dick Scobee and a founder of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, told ABC News she is "disappointed" in the singer's decision to include the clip.
"We were disappointed to learn that an audio clip from the day we lost our heroic Challenger crew was used in the song 'XO,' " she said. "The moment included in this song is an emotionally difficult one for the Challenger families, colleagues and friends. We have always chosen to focus not on how our loved ones were lost but rather on how they lived and how their legacy lives on today."
In an exclusive statement to ABC News, Beyoncé said, "My heart goes out to the families of those lost in the Challenger disaster. The song 'XO' was recorded with the sincerest intention to help heal those who have lost loved ones and to remind us that unexpected things happen, so love and appreciate every minute that you have with those who mean the most to you.
"The songwriters included the audio in tribute to the unselfish work of the Challenger crew with hope that they will never be forgotten."
But former NASA members aren't buying the singer's position of the song as a tribute to those who lost loved ones.
"This choice of historic and solemn audio is inappropriate in the extreme," Keith Cowing, a former NASA employee who now runs the NASAWatch.com website, told ABC News. "The choice is little different than taking Walter Cronkite's words to viewers announcing the death of President Kennedy or 911 calls from the World Trade Center attack and using them for shock value in a pop tune."
According to ABC News, Cowing wants Beyoncé to remove the clip and to apologize to the families of the Challenger crew. Several current NASA astronauts who cannot speak on the record told ABC News that they were not pleased with the singer's use of such a tragedy for her love song.
Beyoncé, who is from Houston, which is also the home of NASA's astronaut-training campus, the Johnson Space Center, has worked with NASA before. In 2011 the singer recorded a wake-up message for the crew aboard the Atlantis.
"You inspire all of us to dare to live our dreams, to know that we're smart enough and strong enough to achieve them," she said.
Read more at ABC News.