From Bach to Blur, Jonathan Powell tunes in to the music we’ve sent into space
As the needle touches down on a vinyl record, so has music itself touched down on other worlds beyond Earth. Whether the melodies have been transmitted from Earth’s surface or launched aboard spacecraft into space, it can be said that music has twinkled the stars.
Radio signals have been leaving our planet for years, and even now, someone, somewhere, may be playing the PopMaster quiz on a distant world – and still getting it wrong. It’s a comforting thought to consider that vastly superior alien life may not be able to name that Number One hit from the 1980s.
The crew of Apollo 10 managed to make their own ‘music’ in space. As the astronauts rounded the far side of the Moon in 1969, they reported whistling sounds to NASA officials back on Earth. These notes turned out to be the result of crossed wires in the communication system between the lunar module and the command module. However, in a test-run for Apollo 11’s actual playing of the track on the lunar surface later, Frank Sinatra’s ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ made its first trek with Apollo 10.
Aside from Ol’ Blue Eyes, the Apollo 11 crew had other music on mixtapes to accompany them on their lunar trip. Among Neil Armstrong’s collection of favourite tunes were tracks from Les Baxter’s 1947 album Music Out of the Moon, along with other 20th-century favourites such as Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand and Glen Campbell.
This tradition continues today, but rather than transporting music, astronauts are woken up by it. The crew aboard the International Space Station receive ‘wake-up music’ from Mission Control, as did astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle.
Back in 1988, the crew of the Soviet Soyuz TM-7 mission took with them Pink Floyd’s just-released live album, Delicate Sound of Thunder, which band member David Gilmour claimed was the first rock music recordin
