spatial music
Dec. 24th, 2010 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacA link to the NORAD Santa tracking site (apparently it just jumps from place to place every five minutes behind the midnight line crossing the globe, and here's why they do it, a charming story stemming from a typographical error) reminds me of the incident in December 1965 when Gemini 6 claimed to have spotted Santa in orbit (giving the ground controllers heart seizures for a few seconds until they figured out the joke).
Of course, the astronauts, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, didn't say anything about Santa. They blandly reported seeing another spacecraft ... apparently in polar orbit (at this point the ground controllers were thinking, "Uh oh, Soviet missile") ... with a command module and eight smaller modules in front (at this point the controllers must have been thinking, "What? Huh?") ... the pilot is wearing a red suit ... and here the astronauts broke out the mouth harmonica and sleigh bells they'd smuggled on board and started playing "Jingle Bells" (at this point everyone on the ground cracked up).
The musical instruments, the first ever played in space, are now in the Smithsonian.
Of course, the astronauts, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, didn't say anything about Santa. They blandly reported seeing another spacecraft ... apparently in polar orbit (at this point the ground controllers were thinking, "Uh oh, Soviet missile") ... with a command module and eight smaller modules in front (at this point the controllers must have been thinking, "What? Huh?") ... the pilot is wearing a red suit ... and here the astronauts broke out the mouth harmonica and sleigh bells they'd smuggled on board and started playing "Jingle Bells" (at this point everyone on the ground cracked up).
The musical instruments, the first ever played in space, are now in the Smithsonian.
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Date: 2010-12-24 10:55 pm (UTC)That is a wonderful story of how silly they can be. Yeah!