Music in space

NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman plays a flute aboard the International Space Station in 2011.

Music in space is music played in or broadcast from a spacecraft in outer space.[1] According to the Smithsonian Institution, the first musical instruments played in outer space were an 8-note Hohner "Little Lady" harmonica and a handful of small bells carried by American astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford aboard Gemini 6A.[2] Upon achieving a space rendezvous in Earth orbit with their sister ship Gemini 7 in December 1965, Schirra and Stafford played a rendition of "Jingle Bells" over the radio after jokingly claiming to have seen an unidentified flying object piloted by Santa Claus. The instruments had been smuggled on-board without NASA's knowledge, leading Mission Control director Elliot See to exclaim "You're too much" to Schirra after the song.[2] The harmonica was donated to the Smithsonian by Schirra in 1967, with his note that it "...plays quite well".[3]

In the 1970s music tape cassettes were brought to the American space station Skylab,[4] while Soviet cosmonauts Aleksandr Laveikin and Yuri Romanenko brought a guitar to the space station Mir in 1987.[1] Musical instruments must be checked for gases they may emit before being taken aboard the confined environment of a space station.[5] As of 2003, instruments that have been aboard the International Space Station include a flute, a keyboard guitar, a saxophone, and a didgeridoo.[5]

Music in space has been a focal point of public relation events of various human spaceflight programs.[1] NASA astronaut Carl Walz played a rendition of the Elvis Presley song "Heartbreak Hotel" aboard the ISS in 2003 which was also recorded and transmitted to Earth.[5] Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, commander of Expedition 35 to the International Space Station, recorded a music video of the song "Space Oddity" by David Bowie aboard the space station. The first music video ever shot in space,[6] the video went viral and received widespread international media coverage after being posted to YouTube.[7] Bowie himself later called the cover "possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created".[8]

Dongfanghong I

Dongfanghong I (simplified Chinese: 东方红一号; traditional Chinese: 東方紅一號; pinyin: Dōngfānghóng Yīhào; literally: "The East is Red 1") was the People's Republic of China's first space satellite, launched successfully on 24 April 1970 as part of the PRC's Dongfanghong space satellite program. The satellite carried a radio transmitter which broadcast the song of the same name, Dōngfānghóng or "The East Is Red"; the broadcast lasted for 20 days while in orbit.

Apollo 17

A few bars of The Fountain in the Park were sung on the Moon by NASA Astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan on the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. Schmitt started by singing "I was strolling on the Moon one day..." when Cernan joined in. Cernan kept with the original "merry month of May", however, while Schmitt sang "December", which was the actual date at the time. After a brief debate, Schmitt resumed, singing "When much to my surprise, a pair of bonny eyes..." until he could no longer remember the lyrics and began vocalizing the notes instead.[9] Moments later, Capsule Communicator Robert A. Parker cut in from Houston, saying "sorry about that, guys, but today may be December."

Voyager Golden Record

The Voyager program probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 which by 2016 were still the farthest human made object from Earth (also Voyager 1 is reported to have reached interstellar space) where the galactic plasma is present.[10] Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched by NASA with a message aboard — a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate to extraterrestrials a story of the world of humans on Earth.[11]

This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.

— President Jimmy Carter

Audio sections contain the spoken greetings in the remaining four languages, including Esperanto and !Kung, and also whale sounds were provided by Roger Payne.[12] The next audio section is devoted to the "sounds of Earth" that include:[13]

Included within the Sounds of Earth audio portion of the Golden Record is a track containing the inspirational message per aspera ad astra in Morse Code. Translated from Latin, it means, through hardships to the stars.

Beagle 2 and Blur

In 2003 the British space organization's Beagle 2 probe was scheduled to play a song from the UK music band Blur, upon touchdown on the planet Mars.[14] It was not known what happened to Beagle for 11 years after its landing, and was considered a lost, but when it was found 2015 intact it raised the possibility that it had successfully played the song on Christmas Day in 2003 when it landed, but failed to transmit back to Earth.[15]

Curiosity rover and Reach for the Stars

American recording artist will.i.am wrote, produced, and recorded the song "Reach for the Stars" (alternately subtitled "Mars Edition" and "NASA Edition") in commemoration of the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. The song was first released on August 28, 2012, and it became the first song that was successfully broadcast from another planet.[16]

Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster

"Starman" prop rocks out to Bowie en route to the Asteroid belt

Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster was launched into Earth orbit, then Solar orbit, in February 2018 as part of the Falcon Heavy Test Flight. The sound system on board the car was looping the Bowie songs "Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars?".[17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Tuned in: music of the Soviet space programme". sciencemuseum.org.uk. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  2. 1 2 Edwards, Owen (2005). "The Day Two Astronauts Said They Saw a UFO Wearing a Red Suit". Smithsonian Magazine. The Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Harmonica, Gemini 6". 20 March 2016.
  4. ↑
  5. 1 2 3 "Space Station Music". NASA Science News. NASA. September 4, 2003. Archived from the original on October 26, 2011.
  6. ↑ Davis, Lauren (12 May 2013). "Chris Hadfield sings "Space Oddity" in the first music video in space". Gawker Media. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  7. ↑ Knapp, Alex (13 May 2013). "Astronaut Chris Hadfield Sings David Bowie As He Departs The International Space Station". Forbes. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  8. ↑ Andrew Griffin. "David Bowie: How Chris Hadfield's 'Space Oddity' cover from orbit was helped by the 'Starman'". The Independent. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
  9. ↑ Astronauts Strolling on Moon and Singing (Videotape). NASA. December 1972.
  10. ↑ "NASA Spacecraft Embarks on Historic Journey Into Interstellar Space". nasa.gov. NASA. September 12, 2013. Retrieved April 15, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Voyager – Golden Record". NASAaccessdate= September 23, 2010.
  12. ↑ Gambino, Megan (April 23, 2012). "What Is on Voyager's Golden Record?". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved November 19, 2012.
  13. ↑ "Voyager – Spacecraft – Golden Record – Sounds of Earth". NASA. Retrieved August 17, 2008.
  14. ↑ "Listen to the music that the Beagle 2 probably played on Mars in 2003 - The Verge". theverge.com. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  15. ↑ Vincent, James (16 January 2015). "Listen to the music that the Beagle 2 probably played on Mars in 2003".
  16. ↑ Karimi, Faith (August 29, 2012). "Will.i.am premieres song -- from Mars". CNN. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
  17. ↑ "SpaceX Successfully Launches the Falcon Heavy—And Elon Musk's Roadster". WIRED. Retrieved 7 February 2018.

See also

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