Here's why live concert of ‘Blue Danube' is being broadcast into deep space: ‘Cosmic mistake'
Johann Strauss' 'Blue Danube' will be beamed into space this month to commemorate the Austrian composer's 200th birthday — and to correct the 'cosmic mistake' of being left out of previous inter-stellar broadcasts, according to officials.
Strauss' 1866 waltz — which famously played over spinning space stations and satellites in the opening of Stanley Kubrick's seminal 1968 sci-fi epic '2001: A Space Odyssey' — will be performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on May 31 while being simultaneously radioed into the stars from the European Space Agency's (ESA) big antenna dish in Spain.
The broadcast will also coincide with the 50th anniversary of the ESA's founding in 1975.
'Blue Danube' was famously featured in one of the opening scenes of Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'
MGM
'Music connects us all through time and space in a very particular way,' said ESA director general Josef Aschbacher. 'The European Space Agency is pleased to share the stage with Johann Strauss II and open the imaginations of future space scientists and explorers who may one day journey to the anthem of space.'
'Blue Danube' will be beamed in the direction of Voyager 1, a deep-space probe launched in 1977 that carried a golden record inscribed with songs and sounds from Earth — including a selection of music ranging from Mozart to Chuck Berry, but notably did not include the Strauss' famously cosmic tune.
The broadcast this weekend is intended to correct that oversight, according to Vienna's tourist board, which added that 'the most famous of all waltzes' was headed for its rightful home.
Strauss' waltz will travel through the cosmos at the speed of light, meaning it will catch up with Voyager 1 — currently more than 15 billion miles from Earth — in about 23 hours.
Johann Strauss' music made waltzes the famous dance they are today
Getty Images
The song will also blast past the moon in 1.5 seconds, Mars in 4.5 minutes, Jupiter in 37 minutes, and Neptune in four hours.
'Blue Danube' is just the latest song to be officially sent into the stars.
In 2008, NASA celebrated its 50th anniversary by beaming the Beatles' 'Across the Universe' into interstellar space. And last year, NASA broadcast Missy Elliott's 'The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)' into space.
Numerous songs have also been played back and forth between NASA crews in space and mission control since manned missions began in the 1960s, and in 2012 will.i.am's 'Reach for the Stars' was played back and forth between Earth and rovers on Mars.
The recording of 'Blue Danube' broadcast into space Saturday will not be from the live performance played at the same time, but will be from a rehearsal recorded the night before to avoid technical problems.
Strauss was born on Oct. 25, 1825, and became known as the 'Waltz King' for a body of compositions that made the dance style one of the most predominant of his century.
With Post wires.
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