The Vinyl Frontier: The Story of NASA's Interstellar Mixtape

by Jonathan Scott

Overview

'Bursts with gloriously geeky detail.' The Telegraph

Have you ever made someone you love a mix-tape?

Forty years ago, a group of scientists, artists and writers gathered in a house in Ithaca, New York to work on the most important compilation ever conceived. It wasn't from one person to another, it was from Earth to the Cosmos.

In 1977 NASA sent Voyager 1 and 2 on a Grand Tour of the outer planets. During the design phase of the Voyager mission, it was realised that this pair of plucky probes would eventually leave our solar system to drift forever in the unimaginable void of interstellar space. With this gloomy-sounding outcome in mind, NASA decided to do something optimistic. They commissioned astronomer Carl Sagan to create a message to be fixed to the side of Voyager 1 and 2 – a plaque, a calling card, a handshake to any passing alien that might one day chance upon them.

The result was the Voyager Golden Record, a genre-hopping multi-media metal LP. A 90-minute playlist of music from across the globe, a sound essay of life on Earth, spoken greetings in multiple languages and more than 100 photographs and diagrams, all painstakingly chosen by Sagan and his team to create an aliens' guide to Earthlings. The record included music by J.S. Bach and Chuck Berry, a message of peace from US president Jimmy Carter, facts, figures and dimensions, all encased in a golden box.

The Vinyl Frontier tells the story of NASA's interstellar mix-tape, from first phone call to final launch, when Voyager 1 and 2 left our planet bearing their hopeful message from the Summer of '77 to a distant future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472956118
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	03/21/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	556 KB

About the Author

Jonathan Scott is a writer, record collector and astronomy geek. He received his first telescope aged eight, using it to track Halley's Comet in 1986. Having followed Voyager's planetary fly-bys throughout his childhood, he first got to write about the missions in 2004.

Jonathan has written for Record Collector magazine, edited books about Prince, Cher and the San Francisco psych explosion, and penned articles on Nirvana, the Pogues, the Venga Boys, Sir Patrick Moore and Sir Isaac Newton in a variety of magazines. If he'd been in charge of the Voyager Golden Record, aliens would assume humanity had three chords.

@thejonoscott
Jonathan Scott is a music writer and self-confessed astronomy geek. Formerly a contributing editor to Record Collector magazine, he's since edited books about Prince, Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, and has written about everything from Sir Isaac Newton to Nirvana. Jonathan's books include The Vinyl Frontier and Into the Groove.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Naked Pioneers
Chapter 2: Needle Hits Groove
Chapter 3: Musos v Scientists
Chapter 4: Uranium Clock
Chapter 5: Now That's What I Call Music
Chapter 6: The Hydrogen Key
Chapter 7: Berry v Beatles
Chapter 8: Flowing Streams and Firecrackers
Chapter 9: Mixing and Mastering
Chapter 10: The Final Cut
Chapter 11: A last Supper
Chapter 12: Hello, We Must Be Going

Select Bibliography
Appendices
Acknowledgements1
Index

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/01/2019

The most intriguing stories are often found in the details, and this is the case for music writer Scott's engaging and conversational look at the creation of the gold-plated records that are still traveling throughout the universe on the two Voyager probes launched in 1977. The records were intended to bring sounds, music, sentiments of peace, and even pictures to potential alien races, and Carl Sagan and his team delivered a stunningly high-tech LP (one copy of The Sounds of the Earth travels with each probe). Descriptions of the time and intellect devoted to the process of content selection, as well as the ingenious methods of data transfer used for the nonaudio components, are fascinating, but the personal tales behind this "message to the stars" are just as enthralling. Sagan, the leading scientist behind the Voyager recordings, published his own account, Murmurs of the Earth, just after Voyager launched, but Scott has the benefit of a wider range of information and sources and an objective view of the process. This is also a very relatable and human way to approach deep space exploration. VERDICT A must for all libraries.—Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA

Library Journal

★ 03/25/2019

Music journalist and Record Collector contributor Scott creates a high-energy, interplanetary pop song of a book devoted to the six-week project led by Carl Sagan and astrophysicist Frank Drake in 1977 to create a playlist of music and sounds to accompany NASA’s Voyager probe into space. Scott, who acknowledges he is more of an expert on mixtapes than astronomy, proves an enthusiastic and upbeat guide through the universe of bureaucratic red tape, tight deadlines, and romantic entanglements that revolved around the compilation effort. His thoroughly researched account draws on interviews with and unpublished writings by Voyager Record team members to explain the decision-making process behind various inclusions, including Chuck Berry’s rock ’n’ roll standard “Johnny B. Goode”—picked when the other pop song in contention, the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,” proved unconscionably expensive —and legendary bluesman Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Is the Night,” “arguably the most haunting sound on the record,” for which team member and famed ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax lobbied. Scott summarizes the story best as being “about an awesome band of ordinary yet exceptional individuals who created a wonderful yet genuinely weird monument.” Delivered with effortless grace, this buoyant look at one of NASA’s most unusual but oft-overlooked efforts will appeal to music fans and astronomy buffs alike. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Bursts with gloriously geeky detail. (5*)” —The Telegraph

“He has the nerd's determination to track down details, to badger surviving protagonists with questions no one else has asked. Above all, he has a golden ear for irony. Far from second-guessing or lamenting the record's imperfections, he revels in its pops, clikc, glitches and quirks.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Both a detailed history of and a thoughtful exegesis on caution-by-committee and the sometimes remarkable synergy between art and science. Crucially, Scott's narrative blends extraterrestrial wonder with earthbound charm and brims with poignant revelations. (4*)” —Mojo

“Jonathan Scott is our cheerful tour guide ... and The Vinyl Frontier is our comprehensive and comprehensible itinerary.” —LA Times

“Scott masters the technical details, often with a touch of humor.” —The Washington Post

“The cast of characters alone is tremendous. Written in a lively, often jocular tone … The Vinyl Frontier tells the tale well” —Science

“Created from a strange marriage of politics, bureaucracy, budget, ambition, innovation, and beauty, Scott describes a portrait of humanity that is still travelling out among the stars.” —The Nerd Daily

“A vital addition to the library of anyone with an interest in the Voyager missions, extraterrestrial contact, or Carl Sagan.” —Astronomy Now

“You may have heard of the Voyager Golden Record, but Scott's illuminating backstory brings a new appreciation to this simple object. It's not just a record. It's science's most thoughtful and optimistic act.” —Amy Shira Teitel, author of Breaking the Chains of Gravity

“An entertaining, compelling, brilliantly-researched and inspiring account of the Voyager spaceship's curious passenger, the Golden Record, and the wonderful team of dreamers who made it happen.” —Emer Reynolds, writer and director of The Farthest

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