After NASA broadcast the song 'The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)' into space, we look back at what other songs have entered the cosmos.
ADVERTISEMENTMissy Elliott’s 90s classic ‘The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)’ has officially entered the cosmos.
Last week (Friday 12 July), NASA transmitted the hip-hop song to the planet Venus via the space organisation’s Deep Space Network (DSN).
The DSN is NASA’s means of communicating with spacecraft from Earth, whether it's a mission to the Moon or further afield.
This is just the second time NASA has used the DSN to send a song to space. The first time was the Beatles’ ‘Across the Universe’, which they sent into deep space in 2008.
Venus was chosen for this mission as it’s Missy Elliott’s favourite planet.
“Both space exploration and Missy Elliott’s art have been about pushing boundaries,” said Brittany Brown, director, Digital and Technology Division, Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington, who initially pitched ideas to Missy’s team to collaborate with the agency.
“Missy has a track record of infusing space-centric storytelling and futuristic visuals in her music videos so the opportunity to collaborate on something out of this world is truly fitting,” Brown continued.
“I still can’t believe I’m going out of this world with NASA through the Deep Space Network when 'The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)' becomes the first ever hip-hop song to transmit to space!,” said Elliott. “I chose Venus because it symbolises strength, beauty, and empowerment and I am so humbled to have the opportunity to share my art and my message with the universe!”
Elliott’s song was transmitted as a radio frequency at the speed of light and travelled the 254 million km distance between Earth and Venus in 14 minutes.
‘The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)’ and ‘Across the Universe’ aren’t the only pieces of music to make it into outer space. Ever since we started to explore beyond the boundaries of our atmosphere, humans have tried to introduce the cosmos to our particular tastes in audio art.
Performing in Space
Some of the first pieces of music to breach the confines of Earth came in the form of live performances. Ukrainian cosmonaut Pavlo Popovych sung the 19th century poem/song ‘Watching the sky and thinking a thought’ by Mykhailo Petrenko on a Soviet mission in 1962.
Later that decade, it was the Americans who played instruments in space for the first time. Astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford played a harmonica and selection of small bells as they orbited Earth in 1965.
Ever since, astronauts and cosmonauts have often brought musical instruments along for missions as a way of staving off the boredom as they hurtle through the harrowing void of space. Probably the most notable recent example was Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recording a video of him playing David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ while on board the International Space Station (ISS) in 2013.
Is there anybody out there?
We’ve also sent a lot of our music directly out to space as a message to any passing aliens that our musical taste is better than theirs. One of the first times the human race did this was when China launched its first space satellite.
The Dongfanghong I satellite was launched in 1970. For 20 days, the satellite broadcast a song also titled ‘Dongfanghong’ (“The East is Red”) out into the void. Subtle.
ADVERTISEMENTOne of the most famous times we’ve sent out music into the depths of space was with the Voyager missions. The Voyager programme was NASA’s first attempt to send two probes into interstellar space (beyond our solar system).
On the Voyager probes, NASA put a time capsule of the human story, intended to communicate it to any potential interstellar life it encountered. The time capsule included a gold record with recordings of human greetings in 55 different languages and a selection of music.
Of the songs included, there were classical pieces from around the world like pieces by Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky and Beethoven, as well as more modern pieces, such as Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B. Goode’.
Since these missions started in 1977, many others have broadcast songs in space, including a Soviet mission that played Pink Floyd in 1988, a British mission that played Blur in 2003, and NASA missions that played will.i.am and Taylor Swift in 2012 and 2018, respectively.
ADVERTISEMENTEasily the most annoying example of music in space is when Elon Musk launched a Tesla Roadster into solar orbit with a livestream of the car playing Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ and 'Life on Mars' on repeat.
Hadfield did it earlier and better, Elon.
