Setting a new record in space, astronaut Luca Parmitano became the first person to DJ a set played on earth while onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Parmitano played a set from a tablet — which he spun in zero-gravity — to more than 3,000 people onboard the cruise ship Norwegian Pearl which was docked at the Spanish island of Ibiza.
Shaking up the annals of space and music history, the around 12- minute long music set is seen by the European Space Agency (ESA) as an opportunity to reach out to the youth in Europe, helping them access space and its possibilities through a familiar lingo.
Organised by the event management company BigCityBeats as part of its WORLD CLUB DOME (WCD) Cruise Edition in partnership with the ESA, the astronaut's set was played as a part of the usual programme of DJs at the festival, according to the ESA press release. According to the company's official website for WCD events, the eponymous annual electronic dance music festival in Frankfurt makes it “the largest club in the world”.
Beaming music in his time away from work on board the ISS, Luca put to use track-mixing skills that he learned from German DJ Le Shuuk, who had trained the astronaut in the art earlier. Luca’s set was followed by Le Shuuk’s.
"I had goosebumps and tears in my eyes when I saw Luca raising the WORLD CLUB DOME flag on the Space Station. When the first music started to play during the broadcast from space, I cannot even begin to describe my feelings in that moment. This has been my dream for many years to create the first club in space and, on a much broader scale, to connect science and music, which I hope will inspire generations to come” said Bernd Breiter, CEO of BigCityBeats.
It all began with a zero-gravity ('zero-g' ) dance party in 2018 inside an Airbus A310 aeroplane specially refurbished for the purpose, where ESA astronauts Pedro Duque and Jean-Francois Clervoy introduced partygoers to the basics of space exploration. With an aim to blend entertainment with the fascination for science, the event was followed by another one in Frankfurt in June this year. Attended by a 50,000 strong crowd, it was meant to mark the inauguration of the WORLD CLUB DOME Space Edition.
