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It was one of the most unique musical videos ever made - and a huge hit on Earth.

Chris Hadfield's recording of David Bowie's Space Oddity had millions of views - until it was pulled from YouTube due to its copyright running out.

Now, David Bowie has agreed to let the video remain for another two years - and says it is 'the most poignant version ever recorded' of his song.  

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Chris Hadfield performing aboard the International Space Station a revised version of David Bowie's song Space Oddity on 12 May 2013. It is now set to be removed.

Hadfield took to his blog to announce the news. 

'When David Bowie wrote and recorded Space Oddity in 1969, I wonder if he ever imagined it being played in orbit? Even more so, would he have imagined (or worried about) the legal concerns of extra-planetary music?

'The version of Space Oddity that I recorded on the International Space Station has had an amazing response – one I couldn't have foreseen and has made me think about ever since.'

When the team removed the video from Youtube, it had been watched 23,489,187 times. 

'With the countless re-posts and re-broadcasts on television the actual number was far higher – hundreds of millions of people, from Seoul to Lahore to Lagos, watched, listened and thus took part in what has become a defining moment in my life. 

'A humbling experience, shared with the whole planet. 

Bowie himself posted on Facebook that it was 'possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created'. 

'As a result of this, the recent reapplication of the legal process has been fairly straightforward,' said Hadfield. 

'We are so happy to be able to announce that my on-orbit cover of Space Oddity is back up on YouTube. 

'This time we have a new 2-year agreement, and it is there, for free, for everyone.

'We're proud to have helped bring Bowie's genius from 1969 into space itself in 2013, and now ever-forward.'

'Space Oddity' from SPACE. Commander Chris Hadfield covers...

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the former ISS commander recalls one moment that stunned him so much, he forgot to pick up the camera.

'Imagine you're lying in bed, with your eyes closed, and there is this tremendous light show coming through your eyes that keeps exploding,' he says, describing an immense storm over Indonesia.

'It looked as if someone with a fat paint brush was swiping it over the Earth for about 500 miles, this great bright light, and it was continuous, back and forth…If there had been gravity, my jaw would have dropped.'

Photographer: Hadfield is pictured on Tuesday photographing Earth in the Cupola with the 'big lens'

Like no other astronaut before him, Hadfield has found a way to humanise space travel.

He may have piloted a spaceship with a four-second window from failure to death, but it was his cosmic rendition of David Bowie's Space Oddity that made him a household name back on Earth.

The YouTube video, which instantly went viral, came complete with strummed chords, pensive gazes and a floating guitar.

The 53-year-old hopes to show that astronauts are just like anybody else. 'People ask all the time, when will normal people be able to fly in space?' he says. 'Like we're only half-normal, like we weren't born normal. But we're just a bunch of people.'

At any given time on the ISS, for instance, you can see an astronaut playfully pirouetting or somersaulting through the air. Hadfield says the novelty of zero gravity never got old.

Chris Hadfield, the former commander on the ISS, pictured playing with water and the lack of gravity

It wasn't just his zero gravity musical talents that warmed him to the hearts of millions, the Canadian also launched a cooking programme while on the ISS.

Named 'Chris Hadfield's Space Kitchen', the series featured recipes such as a honey and peanut butter tortillas and chocolate pudding.

In another video, Hadfield taught the world how to brush their teeth in space. 'You need to swallow the toothpaste,' he says. 

'Spitting it out is a very bad idea.' 

One of his favourite things to do was 'try and get absolutely perfectly still, and see how long I could go without touching anything. My best was only a few minutes – harder than it seems!'

During this time, Hadfield's home was the ISS, a spaceship the size of a football field with more living space than a five bedroom house. 

Parts of the spaceship are so large, that astronauts can get stuck in the middle of a room without anything to push off. 

Inside, he describes it as an Alice in Wonderland-type world where you have to decide which way will be 'up'.

In the gym area for example, the treadmill sticks out from the wall while to reach the viewing station you have to float upside down.

Hadfield was commander of the ISS, a spaceship the size of a football field with more living space than a five bedroom house. Inside, he describes it as an Alice in Wonderland-type world where you have to decide which way will be 'up'

While zero gravity on ISS can be entertaining, it can bring with it some unique challenges. For instance, in his memoirs 'An astronaut's guide to life on Earth', Hadfield describes how even sweat during exercise can pose a problem.

'It just accumulates on your body like a slowly expanding liquid shield,' he says. 'If you turn your head quickly, that huge, wet glob of sweat might dislodge, sail across the module and smack an unsuspecting crewmate in the face.'

Chris Hadfield was the first Canadian to walk in space. He recently returned from a five month-stint in on the International Space Station where he served as commander

Incidents like this, combined with the isolation and duration of space flight can lead to tensions boiling over.

According to stories of some of the first cosmonauts, there have been fist fights on space stations and astronauts have refused to speak to one another for days on end.

That's why, for Hadfield, comedy is so vital for keeping morale up and conflicts at bay. He says there were many incidents that still make him smile, but one particular moment sticks in his mind.

Chris Hadfield's Space Kitchen on board the International Space...

Hadfield took more than 40,000 pictures from space and tweeted hundreds of them. Pictured is the Glacier tongues in the Himalayas taken January 8

'For some reason, one of the crew members decided he should come to dinner dressed as a Hawaiian lady,' he laughs. 'He was looking for breasts, and found some pudding cups. He came floating around the corner wearing this getup, singing Hawaiian music.

'Unfortunately he brushed into the hatch and his pudding cups came loose. They were all akimbo. He was willing to absolutely mock himself to better the emotional state and psychology of the group. We did things in that vein all the time.'

For someone revered as extraordinary, it's in the ordinary and every day that Hadfield often draws inspiration. 'A beautiful insight can come from an unexpected quarter,' he said.

'A good example is Britain's Got Talent, where you have some person that, if you stood next to on a bus, you would have absolutely no idea that they have some sort of skill that would absolutely floor you. I try to find within each person the stuff that is definitely worth trying model after.

Vlogging space star Hadfield returns to earth

The down-to-Earth spaceman recalls his Auntie Florence as one unlikely inspiration. 'I've never talked about Auntie Flo before, and it's never occurred to me really, but she was a lady I greatly respected. She was from Yorkshire and her first husband was killed in the First World War, so she was a very young widow.

'She married again, and her second husband died early as well. She spent most of her life alone, and not a glorious existence at all. I hope I can have the strength and the patience to face through life with the depth that Auntie Flo did.'

Hadfield is now back on Earth, adjusting to life without floating tortillas, death-defying spacewalks and cross-dressing astronauts. He describes life in space as being 'one of the very rare experiences in life that is better than you dreamed it would be.'

But unlike many before him, he has found the transition relatively painless. Hadfield says being in space gave him a new insight into life back on Earth. And he isn't sad to have left.

'I'm absolutely the opposite,' he says. 'It's as if you said 'you must be so sad that you had chocolate cake 15 years ago'. Well, no, I'm still alive and because I had the best cake 15 years ago, it doesn't mean that everything else tastes bad all of a sudden.'

Hadfield tweeted this picture of Newfoundland and Labrador, shot without zoom, on January 7

CHRIS HADFIELD'S SIX SUCCESSFUL 'SPACE MISSIONS'

November 1995
Hadfield served as Mission Specialist 1 on STS-74, NASA's second space shuttle mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian Space Station Mir. During the flight, the crew of Space Shuttle Atlantis attached a five-tonne docking module to Mir and transferred over 1,000 kg of food, water, and scientific supplies to the cosmonauts.

April 2001
Hadfield served as Mission Specialist 1 on STS-100 ISS assembly Flight 6A. During the 11-day flight, Hadfield performed two spacewalks, which made him the first Canadian to ever leave a spacecraft and float freely in space. In total, Hadfield spent 14 hours, 54 minutes outside, travelling 10 times around the world.

From 2008-09
Hadfield served as the backup for Dr Bob Thirsk for Expedition 20/21, a long-duration spaceflight, training to live and work on board the ISS for a period up to six months. After this assignment, he supported the ISS Operations Branch and developed Emergency procedures for the ISS.

May 2010
Hadfield was the Commander of NEEMO 14, a Nasa undersea mission to test exploration concepts living in an underwater facility off the Florida coast. NEEMO 14 used the ocean floor to simulate exploration missions to the surface of asteroids, moons and Mars.

June 2010
Hadfield was part of the Pavilion Lake research team, located 420km northeast of Vancouver. Pavilion Lake is one of the few places on Earth where microbialites are found. The team used a combination of remotely operated vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, SCUBA divers and DeepWorker submersibles to help understand and identify potential forms of extraterrestrial life on future missions to Mars.

September 2010
Chris Hadfield was assigned to Expedition 34/35. On December 19, 2012 he launched aboard the Russian Soyuz, en route to becoming the second Canadian to take part in a long-duration spaceflight aboard the ISS. On March 13, 2013 he became the first Canadian to command a spaceship as Commander of the ISS during the second portion of his five-month stay in space. On May 13, Hadfield, Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko landed in Kazakhstan after travelling almost 99.8 million kilometres while completing 2,336 orbits of Earth. The trio spent 146 days in space, 144 of which were aboard the station.