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History

Deep Space Music Network

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 11, 2013
Filed under

Listening to the Deep Space Music Network, Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP)
“Dennis Wingo: A funny story from today. I was running a Lunar Orbiter tape today and all of a sudden I started hearing music coming from the audio speaker. It was really nice, staring out with a piano solo and then a couple of other pieces then a full on concert by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. It was really cool to hear this old sixties music coming across the deep space network.”
Keith’s note: All of the data tapes from the Lunar Orbiter program had an audio track that contained technical information by the tape drive operators at ground stations in Woomera, Goldstone, and Madrid. Usually it is technobable. Quite often there is also chatter about things in the news, and in this case, inadverdently, what was playing on the radio. Right now the LOIRP is going though a series of tapes recorded in Madrid.
Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project website
1967 Audio Recording on First Anniversary of Lunar Orbiter 1 Launch
Lunar Orbiter Photo Techs talk About Looking for Surveyor 1 & Luna 9 Landing Sites
Video: Lunar Orbiter Techs Talk About Crater Kepler in 1967

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

4 responses to “Deep Space Music Network”

  1. Denniswingo says:
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    It is highly likely that this was completely unauthorized but no one stopped it. It went on for at least half an hour and no one said anything….

  2. Rocky J says:
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    When you refer to the 60s music and Lunar Orbiter, our thoughts should turn to John Kennedy who set NASA on the course to the Moon landings which also depended on Lunar Orbiter and the other robotic precursor missions. Given what he did right and despite his faults, we reflect on his presidency and the loss of his life, 50 years ago on November 22, 1963. The assassination in Dallas remains unprecedented in human history – caught on film, his life lost in front of his wife and the whole world in the most gruesome way.

    The Lunar Orbiter missions were part of the Kennedy’s goal for the decade that culminated in six lunar landings. Near the end of the JFK Rice University speech he does not avoid stating the cost of the race to the moon. For 1963, the NASA budget was jumping to $5B and his argument for the cost included that Americans in the 60s were spending twice the NASA budget on cigarettes and cigars alone. Today’s $17B NASA budget remains less than half of what consumers spend on tobacco products yearly. We know there are many comparisons that can be made.

    We know the US and NASA was driven by the race and a need to show supremacy in the new frontier over Soviet Union after they took the great prizes – the first satellite, first man, first woman and several others. The Lunar Orbiter mission supported the Apollo mission but there was scientific merit to the robotic lunar missions. Kennedy asks rhetorically, why the moon, why space and he refers to George Mallory – because its there, the moon and planets are there. He emphasized the scientific value of NASA.

    Prior to JFK’s speech at Rice (September 12, 1962), the University president introduces several dignitaries including the vice president but also James E. Webb. He was introduced as a person with great organizational and financial management skills brought into NASA to make the whole effort cost effective. Recall how O’Keefe was criticized as a bean counter. Webb was much in the same vein but he added a key ingredient for that time – good management for some very specific and unwavering goals leading to landing men on the Moon.

    Webb and NASA management of the 60s made mistakes but granted, such an administrator as Webb would have something to say about the management of the space telescope baring his name.

    Now fifty years since the NASA budget expanded and Saturn F1 engines were being tested in Huntsville, Washington politicians are still setting and changing goals, forcing mandates but not on the timeline of a decade but rather one year or two or maybe three. Its wrecking the NASA manned program. The politicians that we claim are our advocates in DC are not calling for change but are protecting their self-interests, their NASA Center or corporate and economic interests in the districts or states. While we need good management such as Webb gave NASA, we need a strong administrator that can call for firm, set goals. The commercial industry is changing and there is an opportunity to make some hard choices, a sea change that will right the NASA manned program.

    If not for the incredible robotic expeditions revealing the wonders of our Solar System, how would the Space Shuttle program have survived. Probably not. Such a great technical achievement but with flaws that slowed manned exploration from flank speed to one-third speed. I love the robotic missions of NASA, the knowledge they have brought us and the inspiration. This includes the Lunar Orbiter missions. But can we stand to watch the manned program stumble again for two more decades? HEOMD, manned spaceflight is worth doing right, simply because space is there, the Moon and planets. It is there ultimately for Mankind. The manned program is meant to inspire but waste further decades and waste billions more and the US program will not inspire anyone nor lead the World in the new frontier. Washington politics does not inspire anyone and its ruining NASA.

  3. Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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    This might be a big clue about what happened to those missing Apollo 11 tapes.

  4. Denniswingo says:
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    Well, I think that I may have an explanation.

    Today (November 13, 2013) There is a discussion about the gain in the Automatic gain control circuit on one of the satellite links. I think that this music might be crosstalk between circuits between the Deep Space Network and some other signal out there somewhere.

    It is pretty cool, been listening to Elvis gospel music and Nat King Cole singing about Rotton Cotton and John Henry the railroad man!