Rosetta inspires Vangelis album

Legendary composer and pioneer of electronic music Vangelis has produced a brand new album, ‘Rosetta’, inspired by ESA’s Rosetta mission.

The release of the album by Decca Records on 23 September will coincide with the culmination of Rosetta’s 12-year mission to orbit and land its Philae probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta is set to complete its journey in a controlled descent to the surface of the comet on 30 September.

The story of this mission fuelled Vangelis’ long-held passion for space and inspired him to create his first new studio album in 18 years.

Vangelis’ music is often linked to themes of science, history and exploration. Alongside his Academy award-winning score for ‘Chariots of Fire’, he has written for films including ‘Bladerunner’, ‘Antarctica’, ‘1492: Conquest of Paradise’, ‘The Bounty’ and ‘Alexander’.

“Mythology, science and space exploration are subjects that have fascinated me since my early childhood. And they were always connected somehow with the music I write,” said Vangelis.
ESA’s connection with Vangelis goes back several years to when ESA astronaut André Kuipers was on the International Space Station. André is a big fan and he had a lot of Vangelis’ music with him in space.

After sharing stories and experiences with André via video call from the ISS, Vangelis was inspired to write some music for ESA to mark the landing of Philae on the comet in 2014.

To Vangelis, music is a sacred, basic force of the Universe, its purpose to elevate, inspire and to heal humankind. Never has this been more obvious than on ‘Rosetta’, an album that perfectly blends his fascination with the Universe and his ability to compose stirring music.

“With music, you can enhance emotions and create memories: I believe that what Vangelis wanted to do was share a lasting memory of our Rosetta mission through his music,” says Carl Walker, from ESA’s communication department.

Vangelis has dedicated this new album to everyone who made the ESA’s ongoing Rosetta mission possible, in particular extending the track called ‘Rosetta’s Waltz’ as an expression of his appreciation to the mission team.

“Rosetta has been an amazing journey for everybody involved, both scientifically and technically, but it has also connected emotionally with so many people around the world,” says ESA’s Prof Mark McCaughrean, senior science advisor in the Directorate of Science.

“So you can imagine how proud we were when one of the world’s great composers Vangelis made some music for us at the time of landing, and how excited we are that he’s put together a whole album of original music about this astonishing adventure.”

Lost in time

As an aside to the main writing themes of the Lighthouse Keeper blog a number of people have asked me about some of the titles used for the various entries about the final Space Shuttle mission.

Well, apart from the obvious ‘label’ headings, there was a musical bent to some of the others - ‘A beautiful day’ (the U2 song), the rather obvious ‘Final countdown’ (explained in that blog), ‘Big boys don’t cry’ (lyrics from 10cc’s' 'I’m not in love') and ‘Tears in the rain’.

The latter is perhaps the least evident but has two potential origins - the 1988 television movie directed by Don Sharp and starring Sharon Stone and Christopher Cazenove, which was based on the romantic novel of the same name written by Pamela Wallace. How likely is that? Or, the science fiction film Blade Runner.

As the 1982 film Blade Runner - directed by Ridley Scott and based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - is an all-time favourite of the Lighthouse Keeper then there was no contest.

‘Tears in the rain’ is the title of one of the Vangelis compositions on the soundtrack and also forms part of an introspective phrase used by Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer), one of the replicant characters, regarding his own death during a rain downpour.

"I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments, will be lost in time like tears in rain..."

It is far too early to know for sure how long-lasting the legacy of Atlantis and the other Space Shuttles will be for future generations - or will these fine flying machines become ‘lost in time’ themselves?

Either way, maybe the Space Shuttle Atlantis was shedding a tear or two of her own during the torrential downpours on the day before launch.

Tears in the rain

Torrential rain, thunder and lightening made for an atrocious day at Kennedy Space Center today. Rain doused the Space Shuttle orbiter and two lightning bolts struck on or nearby the launch pad.

Officials said a preliminary assessment found no major problems or systems affected and while additional data reviews were planned, engineers did not expect to need any time-consuming system re-tests.

Forecasters predicted a 70 percent chance of stormy weather triggering a launch delay tomorrow, though the forecast improves slightly to 60 percent ‘no go’ Saturday and then to 40 percent on Sunday.

"Weather is not looking good for launch," shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters told reporters during a morning briefing.

"As you can see outside, the clouds have rolled in, we're starting to see some showers. We even had a thunderstorm show up this morning. So we are expecting more of this for the next couple of days."

The appalling conditions didn’t prevent NASA going ahead with the retraction of the Rotating Service Structure protecting Atlantis on launch pad 39A. It began rolling back at 2:38 pm, about 30 minutes later than planned.

Rain was pounding KSC at the time and a couple of hundred media photographers, including myself, were drenched as we waited in the open for security checks before being bused out to the launch pad to see the Shuttle.

With temperatures in the mid-80s Fahrenheit it was steamy and humid as we viewed Atlantis from the crawler-way which leads up to the launch pad. As well as the media the mosquitos were out in force.

A three hour tanking operation to fill the giant external tank with fuel was scheduled to begin at 2 am Friday morning after an assessment of the weather conditions by mission managers.