The real “Star Academy”

Whether for marking breaks in the full timetables or for combining an artistic approach with scientific research, music is often present in various ways on board the space missions. A real “academy of the stars” as it were...

 

 

Voyager 1 and 2 probes each carry a record containing 90 minutes of music. The technical directions for playing the records are to be found on their reverse side. Credit: NASA

At this very moment, two records containing 90 minutes of music are travelling on the borders of the solar system just over 13 and 16 billion km from good old Mother Earth...

Explore the planets and beyond with music
Launched in 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 probes each contain a gold-covered copper record on which sound and visual accounts of our world were recorded, together with a selection of 27 pieces of essentially classical and folk music. Nevertheless, between 3 of Bach’s compositions (the most represented artist) and the traditional songs, there are some more contemporary works of the time such as the famous rock standard Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry, as well as jazz by Louis Armstrong and blues by Blind Willie Johnson.
Both records are still the examples of physically recorded music that are the furthest away from Earth, and shall remain so for a very long time. They were specifically designed to be consulted by a hypothetical extraterrestrial civilisation (on the “back” of the record are graphic directions for playing the recordings). Similar to a “bottle in the sea”, this idea comes from the fact that Voyager 1 and 2 – after having explored Jupiter, Saturn, then Neptune and Uranus (the latter two solely by Voyager 2) between 1979 and 1989 – are following a trajectory that will take them out of our solar system and lose them in the immense void that reigns between the stars of our galaxy...

Music composition and public relations
The two Voyager probes are not, however, the only robot explorers to carry or use music in one way or another. There was, for example, the European probe Huygens, which landed on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, on 14 January 2005. When it was launched in 1997, the spacecraft contained 4 pieces totalling 12 minutes of music specifically composed for the mission by Frenchmen Julien Civange and Louis Haéri. The operation was named Music2Titan. According to the European Space Agency, the aim was not only to take an artistic token to an as yet unexplored world, but also to “make the Huygens mission better known (...) and interest the public – especially the younger generation – in this adventure”. An instance of how music can help space agencies in their relations with the public!
NASA has used this communications stunt on more than one occasion, sometimes with an impressive demonstration of means. The 2001 Mars Odyssey mission is a good example. The American agency quite simply appealed to the famous Vangelis, known for his electronic music and winner of an Oscar for the soundtrack of the film Chariots of Fire. The result was the Mythodea album with the caption “music composed for the NASA mission: 2001 Mars Odyssey”. And that’s not all... On 28 June 2001, just a few weeks after the Mars Odyssey launch, a one-off concert was given in the Athens Acropolis with Vangelis on the synthesizers playing compositions from the album with the London Metropolitan Orchestra, the chorus of the Greek National Opera and world-famous sopranos Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. All in the presence of the Administrator of NASA at the time, Dan Goldin. The DVD of the concert even contains a video bonus of the Mars Odyssey mission made by the American agency.

Manned spaceflight with songs
Music is also part of life aboard manned spaceflights. National anthems are obviously included and, for example, that of the United States (The Star-Spangled Banner) can be heard through the loudspeakers in the public and guest reception areas in the Kennedy Space Center in Florida just before the shuttle lifts off. Once in space, music plays a role of welcome relaxation to relieve the stress inherent in space missions and to enhance the much needed team spirit between the astronauts and the ground crews. Colin Fries, from the NASA History Office, identifies the flight of the 2-man space capsule Gemini 7 (4-18 December 1965) as the first broadcast of songs and music intended for a crew on record. Jim Lovell and his Commander Frank Borman listened as Houston radio transmitted them a contrasting selection dominated by classical music (Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, La Boheme by Puccini, etc.).

Houston broadcast pieces of music to astronauts Jim Lovell and Frank Borman to help them relax during a long 14-day mission in a tiny, 2-man space capsule. Crédit : NASA

However, popular melodies have had their place since this flight and have even played a role of allusion or been used to send a personal message. On 9 December 1965, the ground transmitted I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus especially for astronaut Jim Lovell at the request of his 12 year old daughter who wanted her father home for Christmas. Then, on 18 December, just before returning to Earth, Lovell and his Commander Frank Borman listened to two appropriate songs: I’ll be home for Christmas and Going back to Houston. It’s true that the capsule was going to splash down, but the lyrics were still fitting as the astronauts were based at the Houston Space Center in Texas. Going back to Houston by the legendary actor/crooner Dean Martin was to stand out as a classic often broadcast to mark the end of a mission.

The two moonwalkers from Apollo 17, Gene Cernan (left) and Harrison Schmitt were woken up by music selected by the Houston control center. Credit: NASA

Wake-up calls: stand by your beds up there!
Again according to NASA historian Colin Fries, the practice of wake-up calls became established in December 1972 during the last manned spaceflight to the moon to date, Apollo 17. Consequently, instead of waking the crew with just a radio call, Houston broadcast a melody or a song. Most of the time there was an underlying meaning to their choice such as We’ve only just begun by the Carpenters to emphasise that the astronauts’ exploration of the Moon should continue beyond Apollo 17... A slight digression as regards this mission: Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt started singing a memorable duo during one of their moonwalks. Schmitt began by singing an American classic that goes: I was strolling in the park one day in the merry, merry month of May. However, the first and only geologist to land on our natural satellite to date adapted the verse to suit the circumstances, changing in the park to on the moon and May to December. But his Commander, Gene Cernan, joining in the song, finished the phrase with the original month of May, committing without doubt the first “gaffe” during a duo sung on the Moon! (see video below)

Wake-up calls survived the stopping of the Apollo programme as well as that of Skylab (the American station from 1973 to 1979) and achieved the status of institution for space shuttle flights as of 1981. There is almost systematically a reason behind the pieces of music or songs. They include military marches as many astronauts come from the army (notably test pilots), and in the same vein, hymns from the universities attended by the crew members. A way for the men and women who go up into space to pay tribute to the establishments that trained them. Family requests are not forgotten and some astronauts have even been surprised on waking to hear their nearest and dearest singing a song to support them in their mission.
Humour has also proved very popular, even if you have to be in the know to understand it. During space shuttle flight STS-51A in November 1984, the crew was to recover telecommunication satellites Palapa B-2 and Westar 6, placed in the wrong orbits. Initially, an insurance company agreed to pay NASA 4.8 million dollars for carrying out this service, but only for Palapa B-2. However, there was a change of plan just 2 months before the shuttle flight and an agreement for a further 1.7 million dollars was signed to save Westar 6 as well. This was too good an occasion and Houston did not pass it up... One of the wake-up calls was the music from Sergio Leone’s cult spaghetti western with Clint Eastwood and a particularly fitting title: For a few dollars more.

 

Eileen Collins awoke to the sound of “Come on Eileen” in July 2005 during her stint as Commander of mission STS-115! Credit: NASA

There have also been more direct, personal allusions such as Come on Eileen (the smash hit by Dexys Midnight Runners in 1982), obviously intended for Eileen Collins, on the 14th day of her mission as Commander of flight STS-114 in July 2005.
The space shuttle narrowly missed becoming the first recording studio in space. In 1986, American astronaut Ron McNair was to record a saxophone solo composed by Frenchman Jean-Michel Jarre on board the Challenger. This should have been the first piece of music played in space available on an album. Unfortunately, Ron McNair died along with his 6 crewmates in an accident as the shuttle lifted off on 28 January 1986. Jean-Michel Jarre paid him tribute on his album Rendez-Vous, released the same year, by naming the last track, Ron’s Piece.

Ronald McNair was to have played a saxophone piece during Challenger flight STS-51L in 1986. Credit: NASA

Stations: cassettes, CD, saxophones, guitars and pianos!
Space stations have revolutionised the world of orbital music in that instruments of a reasonable size are now present. Space is usually extremely scarce in a spaceship and although a harmonica does not pose any problems, a piano is out of the question. And yet... Space stations make long-duration flights possible (several months instead of between a few days to two weeks), it is therefore essential to make provision for relaxing activities for the astronauts. Consequently, Russian stations have seen the arrival of cassette players and the mythical Mir (1986-2001) housed various instruments including guitars and a saxophone, taken and used by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Haigneré.

Music pays no heed to frontiers! Russian Gennady Strekalov plays the guitar for his American guests aboard Mir (left). German Thomas Reiter in the same station with another kind of guitar in 1995 (centre). The same Reiter, ten years later in 2006, playing guitar this time in the ISS for his Russian colleague Mikhail Tyurin. Credit: NASA

The International Space Station which currently unites fifteen or so countries is continuing the tradition with a very beautiful guitar, no doubt of Russian origin. The Destiny laboratory in the American section is home to a piano, or more exactly a very reasonably-sized synthesizer. Technological advances have led the old cassette and CD players to yield their place to personal stereo systems such as iPods which are far more compact for astronauts wanting to take their own music collection up into space.
In 2002, the Station was very nearly home to the professional singer, Lance Bass, a member of the American boys band ‘N Sync. The 23 year old star was actively involved in the difficult training required for space tourists and even underwent a surgical operation to correct a heart deficiency which would have disqualified him on medical grounds. Unfortunately, the financing for his mission through sponsoring contracts fell through when the music station MTV withdrew; put off apparently by possible legal complications in the event of an accident Lance Bass is still, however, keen to go into space and has participated in space promotions on several occasions.

The ISS Destiny laboratory is home to a Yamaha PSR282 keyboard delivered at the end of 2001 by space shuttle flight STS-108. Carl Walz plays for his colleagues (left). Ed Lu, nicknamed Piano Man, follows a music score whilst European Pedro Duque (right) turns the pages. Credit: NASA

These few, by no means comprehensive, examples show that space agencies have widely allowed songs and melodies to become part of missions, whether it is to communicate with the general public, give the crews a means of demonstrating their morale or to pay miscellaneous tributes. But it is also clear that that we are only in the early stages as, often considered to be a universal language, music inevitably has its place in Humanity’s flight to the stars.

With Amazon, preview freely some music related to this article (on the page that opens, click the play button on the left of the song's title).
Johnny B. Goode
Mythodea
The Star-Spangled Banner
I saw mommie kissing Sant Claus
I'll be home for christmas
Going back to Houston
We've only just begun
Come on Eileen
Ron's piece (on FNAC Music - select title n°6)

Published on 22 June 2009