Cosmic Culture as Reflected in Popular Music

Thomas Gangale

The annual global celebration of "Yuri's Night," commemorating the April 1961 flight of Vostok 1, increases in popularity every year. As we enter the second half-century of human spaceflight, it is a time to reflect on the development of global space culture. It began in the 1950's as two distinct cultures--Soviet and American--reflecting the Cold War rivalry that fueled the Space Race. In the intervening decades there has been a blending of these two initial cultures, other nations have added their cultural voices, and the center of the emerging global space culture has shifted. National space cultures have displayed different emphases on science fiction and UFO themes versus devotion to national astronautic accomplishments. These and other factors may be leading cultural indicators of the vigour of national space efforts and their relevance to the global thrust into the final frontier.

The researcher seeks co-researchers with backgrounds in cultural anthropology and musicology with a strong interest in space history. Of particular interest is collaboration with researchers who are familiar with space-themed music from non-English speaking cultures.

At present, the music collection of more than 1700 tracks and 113 hours of music is organized into 125 segments, each approximating the running time of a compact disc (CD), which include 10 hours of voice clips of important events to provide historical context. The play lists are being rolled out incrementally as research continues. In addition, a library of song lyrics is in development.