In the ongoing quest for sounds from the hearts of space for use as digital music sources, I give you NASA’s SuitSat. The crew of the International Space Station has equipped the Russian Orlan spacesuit with batteries, a radio transmitter, and sensors; it’ll transmit power and temperature info Earthward. To pick it up, you just need a radio receiver that can be tuned to 145.990 MHz FM. February 3 is the launch, with tracking info posted to the SuitSat Tracking site.

Now this sounds like a sound source even more interesting than the dying hard drive. (More on the results of the latter from Gizmodo.com soon.) Anyone got a good FM receiver to pick this up? Let me know!

If we can get some audio, we can start the remixes. Disembodied space suit tumbling to Earth? There’s probably a whole concept album here.

I look forward to releases of sounds captured in outer space the way some people wait for new album releases. Don Gurnett, the University of Iowa physicist responsible for various space-bound audio instruments and the major advocate for space sound, is the Jagger of the genre. Even the Kronos Quartet has gotten in on the action.

The latest from this physics rockstar: Voyager 1 crossing the Termination Shock, part of the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space. (Far out . . . literally.) 6 seconds of strange clicks and pops — and pure music. AFP has a full story on the sound. Via Electronic Musician Extra — keep it coming, Gino!

See Dr. Gurnett’s space audio page for lots more of this, and previous CDM coverage of sounds from Saturn and Titan. (I wound up working the sound of the spacecraft traversing Saturn’s rings, heavily processed in Logic, into a dance score recently. So there’s definitely musical potential.)

Still hungry for space-related sounds? Music Thing this week took a different angle, with music made in space (as in, by astronauts). Peter at MT links to an endless page that covers sounds made in space, sounds from space, and even sounds about space and music for space exploration.

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The first Star Wars movie launched a golden age of cinematic design, but not just for visuals — it was sound design’s greatest moment, too. The technology that made all this possible? None other than the humble field recording. (By the way, this is on everyone’s mind — just as I was putting this together, Gino Robair linked from his excellent newsletter for Electronic Musician!)

Armed with a Nagra recorder, sound designer Ben Burtt built many of the now-familiar sounds of Star Wars from ingenious attention to real world sounds. Through masterful editing and enhancement, and the occasional electronic addition, he crafted the sounds we all know and love. Just a few examples:

Tie Fighter: Altered sound of an elephant call.

R2D2: A combination of an ARP 2600 synth and water pipes, whistles, and human vocalizations.

Lightsaber: When the humming idle of simplex projectors wasn’t sufficient, Burtt combined that sound with interference picked up by a microphone from a TV picture tube. For the movement of the blades, he waved his microphones through the air over a speaker. (see extended interview)

Laser gun blasts: Among others, a principle element of the laser blast is the sound of a hammered wire on a radio tower. (Not, as is commonly reported, the wires on the Golden Gate Bridge.) See the full story from Burtt’s chemist dad.

Darth Vader: Some of the effect of Darth Vader’s voice is acheived with a carefully modulated vocoder.

The second trilogy: Burtt has continued the organic sound design in the new movies. One example: the bubbling sound when Anakin sees Watto is boiling liquid nitrogen from Burtt’s father’s lab.

And that’s just the beginning: a motel air conditioner was added to Imperial ships to make the more menacing. The Ewok language was constructed out of layered, re-edited versions of Tibetan, Mongolian, and Nepali. Bears, walruses, dogs, and lions (but mostly bears) became the sound of Chewbacca. Freeway sounds recorded through a tube, electric guitars, electric toothbrushes and razors, dolphins, synthesized sounds (now employing newer synth systems like Kyma), and many others have become Star Wars sounds over the years. Burtt says he was inspired by classic foley work, too; fitting in the original trilogy, which took many cues from classic film.

It took a sound designer with a degree in physics and a lot of imagination to make it all work. Here’s where you can find out more (and if I’ve missed any links or anecdotes, please send them!):

Filmsound.org: Extensive list of stories and links, compiled by Sven E Carlsson

Interview transcribed from the LaserDisc set

Ben Burtt’s bio from StarWars.com

The real story behind the laser guns

Long Q&A with Ben from StarWars.com (covering all six movies).

Incidentally, I’m fairly certain R2D2 is an ARP 2600 but couldn’t find confirmation. And, surprisingly, I couldn’t find details on Darth. Anyone with more info? And what were your favorite sounds?

NASA's Cassini spacecraft was bomboarded with dust particles
that make up Saturn's rings, and the sound against its high-gain
antenna are included in a new video file. Meanwhile, as the ESA's Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument makes its descent to Titan, acoustic sensors pick up audio data posted by ESA as MP3s.

Load up your iPod and enjoy digital sound from space, while we wait for
NASA to try again on the Mars microphone idea. And by the way, the
government agencies' audio is typically public domain, so I expect to
hear your remixes soon. Via our friend Gina Robair of Electronic
Musician (check out their free email lists).