Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the Moon Photograph: Neil Armstrong/Corbis
We just got this in from the band, it does not get much cooler than this:
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, doves were invited to Jodrell Bank, the Cheshire based Centre for Astrophysics last Thursday. Where they attempted to bounce notes from Jez’s guitar off the moon! The signal was sent from a dish in Cambridge and was to be picked up by the lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank.
Unfortunately they couldn’t align the dishes whilst the band were there. But yesterday, Dr Tim O’Brien successfully sent and received the signals. Which is believed to be a world first!
More as we have it. How cool is that?
Kinda related bit regarding Jodrell Bank from an interview the band did with thequietus.com back in April.
So, Jodrell Bank –that’s fucking brilliant isn’t it? I used to love going there when I was a kid.
Jimi: “The first thing we ever did as Sub Sub, ‘Space Face’, had Jodrell Bank on the cover. It’s like our spiritual home. You can see it from here and from our studio. We were there for three months before I realised you could see it. I was out the back having a fag and I was like ‘It’s fucking Jodrell Bank, man.’”
Andy: “Every time I went out for a drive to get away from the studios I’d always end up there.”
Jodrell Bank tracked the Russian Luna 9 probe to the moon’s surface and received the first facsimile photo from the surface. They ended up doing it because the Russians were about to launch this thing but then realised that they could send something to the moon but they didn’t have a telescope strong enough to track it and receive messages from the surface. They couldn’t ask the Americans obviously . . .
Andy: “It’s amazing. It’s about 50 years old now but when it was first built it must have been like ‘What the fuck is that thing?’”
Jimi: “I like it as well because it represents that 1950s vision of the future, that shining steel and massive design from the golden age of flying and space travel. Future retro. It reminds you of a time when it was your ambition to fly. Now you daren’t mention that you flew to get to a concert.”
