Music, the times we took it into space

December 1965Gemini program: Thomas Stafford and Walter Schirra they play a small harmonica and bells. The notes are those of Jingle Bells, and that was it the first time a musical instrument was played in space. It was only the first, because then we repeated the experience many times, especially as the conditions of liveability of space vehicles became more suitable for the transport of musical instruments and performance. Music is in fact a distinctive feature of our culture, which we take into consideration so much that we consider it perhaps one of the things that defines us the most, so much so that we want to bring it with us into space as well. It is no coincidence that in the message that we have symbolically engraved in the two Golden Records, aboard the Voyagers, we have chosen precisely music to tell us and tell our culture to any alien civilizations that could find them in the distant future.