Gorillaz: The Parish of Space Dust Meaning

The Parish of Space Dust Lyrics

Oh Texas,can you hear me? Speed up on the dawn. To the pains and blues of Houston in the sun.

Where home is a bust. In the parish of space dust

(Up where the rocket ship flies)

And today is Golden.

1. anonymous

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   Aug 6th 2015 !⃝

   I'm with Kaidan, I would argue NASA represents scientific dogma as a whole, the parish of space dust could very well be Johnson's Space Center as you mention, I have seen versions of these lyrics that say "where home is a bus", that reminded me of the scientific "awe inspiring" thought that earth is our spaceship and we are here for the ride and we are just space dust that will one day die and vanish into obscurity... thanks for the awe, science.
2. Kaidan

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   Feb 8th 2012 !⃝

   This song might be remarking at the fact that Texas is the home of NASA's facility located in Houston, the Johnson Space Center which in turn is the home for the NASA Astronaut Corps "responsible for training space explorers from the United States and our space station partner nations."
   The Parish of Space Dust might be referring to this facility as one where people rigorously study a great variety of things dealing with space in general, like comets, asteroids, stars, ect. that could all be referred to as "space dust" in very generalized, perhaps laughable, or more... earthbound terms as the view of the writer seems slightly a little judgmental of people putting so much effort into studying astronautics to the point of where it seems practically... religious, per say. Billions of taxpayers dollars go into NASA programs that perhaps could go to more earthbound causes like world hunger, world peace, or what have you. In the end, one might just see the whole thing as someone "preaching" about the make up of "space dust", rather than just dedicated scientists looking to tell people about the potentially extraordinary science behind what lies outside of earth's atmosphere. The facility could be seen as a practical parish, a church if you will, for people to learn more about astronautics and such like they would learn about God and such from going to an actual church.
   Although the album this song is on was released in 2010, I think the line "And today is Golden" best lines up with the "Golden" (50th) Anniversary of Johnson Space Center celebrated on September 19th, 2011. That's pretty much the explanation that best fits that line from what I can gather in my studies. It /could/ be conjectured that it may refer to the scientist Dr. D.C. Golden who has a Ph.D. in Soil Chemistry. And he was one of the scientist who made a publication in the 2010 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference dealing with "Spherulitic growth of hematite under hydrothermal conditions: Insights into the growth mechanism of hematite spherules at Meridiani Planum, Mars," or in other bluntly simple terms "Space Dust".
   The line "Where home is a bust." could be a remark about people leaving their homes to go through the NASA Astronaut Corps and enter into a life that takes them so far away from said homes that they are "bust", so to say.
3. anonymous

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   Jan 31st 2012 !⃝

   Its about some space dust perishing.

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