This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the debut album Moon Safari by French band Air. A stellar album, the duo Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin later went on to provide a new soundtrack to one of the world’s first science fiction films ever made: Georges Meliès’ Le voyage dans la lune. The film was originally released in 1902 but a restored version with new soundtrack produced by Air came out 110 years later in 2012.
To honour the French pioneer filmmaker we included a postcard of Georges Meliès in the Orion crew capsule to go on a safari, around the Moon and farther than any human-rated spacecraft has been before. 120 years after A trip to the Moon was released, a photo of Georges Meliès was sent around the Moon.
To add to the remarkable Artemis I mission, we invited the members of Air to sign the postcard and Jean-Benoît and Nicolas obliged (who wouldn’t?), adding a note each about the Moon.
The postcard was recovered after splashdown off the Pacific Coast and made its way across mainland USA to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center from where it left Earth in November 2022 on the mega Moon rocket SLS Artemis I launch. The items ESA included on the first Artemis flight have all been returned to Europe to be put on display, watch this blog…
In the meantime have a listen to the two inspiring Moon-themed albums by Air:
Automated Transfer Vehicle page
ATV blog archive
NASA Orion page
NASA Artemis
Airbus Orion page
Discussion: no comments