Space is the Place

NASA recently made an ill-advised DJing decision: to celebrate the 45th anniversary of their Deep Space Network by broadcasting the Beatles' "Across the Universe" to the North Star tonight.

Clearly, the more appropriate artist to use in this situation is Sun Ra, and we here at WFMU disapprove of NASA's scandalous oversight.

Comments

[zombot]

coulda been worse. coulda been purple people eater or some novelty martian song.

they should have synched (sunk?) up all the 'across the universe' cover songs for creepy, peaceful multivocal humanity sort of effetc, at least.

[Brian Turner]

Still time to lobby for Von Lmo/Saturn probe.

[Jeff Phinney]

Interstellar file sharing, sending MP3s off into space...isn't that going to get the RIAA angry?

[Richard]

I would have gone with "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" by the Langley Schools Music Project, myself.

[Adwanoc]

Shame on you NASA! Get your math straight.
Sun Ra > John Lennon

[Mr Fab]

Don't worry about it folks. When a reporter asked Sun Ra if he was disappointed his music wasn't included on the disk of Earth sounds on the Voyager spacecraft, he said no: "The Space Brothers know what my music is like. They SENT me here."

(He also said, "Have you seen 'Star Wars'? It's very authentic."

Quotes courtesy of the great Sun Ra bio book "Space Is The Place.")

[Ernie (Not Bert)]

I'm sure that wherever that signal goes, they'll have already heard Sun Ra, since he's already been there. So NASA felt the need to give them something new from 40 years ago.

[mrG]

Well ... keep in mind ...

• in Space is the Place the NASA scientists are not portrayed in the most positive light. It's not that they are evil, per se, it's just that, well, I don't think there's even going to be a part of them suitable for the transmolecular isotope teleportation.


• when asked if he felt snubbed by NASA when the Pioneer probes included Chuck Berry and all that, but no Sun Ra, Ra remarked, "My space brothers already know what I sound like." ... after all, he is a regular commuter!

Besides, as Ra fans already know, playing any sound immediately broadcasts that sound out to The Creator, there's no need for fancy antennas, its just the way it is with music. You play, the Creator hears, a direct line. The music you play, it tells the Creator what sort of a planet this is, and helps him decide if its worth keeping, or if it should stay cursed ...

The real and present danger I see here in NASA's naive shot at an interplanetary podcast is not that they chose to snub the arkestra for their message, but in the low-tech method of their medium, and the message they did send out, being, as it is, highly commercial and way over-produced ear-candy relayed by primitive lightwave modulations, could they be sending out a message to some distant civilization to say, "Hey, we're hicksville rubes and we'll buy anything if you package it right!"

I mean, dig: it's like, as they say, it's unwise to yell in the jungle because you just never know what sort of opportunists may be out there wandering about, looking about for a mark ...

[Rhodomontade]

Just because some piece of junk is unknown doesn't mean it is any good. Sun-Ra was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, a trashy student film from some black Berkeley racist wannabe director, only incidentally starring this total catatonic monotone loon, "Sun-Ra." This is kitsch trash, nothing but Angel Figurines for the poseur set.