What was the first song ever played in space?

Space is silent, vast and serious. So the first tune ever played on instruments beyond Earth must have been something grand and cosmic, right? The Apple is sure it was Bowie. The Sole, who once spent a whole term under the desk of a music teacher, has a festive surprise.

The short answer

The first song played on musical instruments in space was Jingle Bells. (Soviet cosmonauts had sung over the radio in 1962, but nobody had played an instrument.) On 16 December 1965, NASA astronauts Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, aboard Gemini 6A, performed it on a small harmonica and a handful of little bells they had smuggled on board.

The real story

Gemini 6A had a big job. A day earlier it had carried out the first crewed rendezvous in orbit, flying close alongside Gemini 7, which was crewed by Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. With the serious work done and Christmas approaching, Schirra and Stafford decided to have some fun.

Stafford came on the radio to Mission Control sounding very official. He reported an unidentified object in a polar orbit, heading from north to south, and said it appeared to be trying to signal them. Anyone listening closely knew who travels from the North Pole in December. Then, instead of a scientific report, the ground heard a cheerful, slightly wobbly rendition of Jingle Bells.

The instruments were tiny. According to the Smithsonian, the harmonica was a Hohner ‘Little Lady’, about 3.5 centimetres long with just one octave. The astronauts had fitted the instruments with dental floss and Velcro so they could hang them on the cabin wall. Mission controllers and the Gemini 7 crew responded with laughter, and the Gemini 6A crew made a point of confirming it was live, not a recording.

The Apple, for the record, finds this the best news she has heard all week, and wants to know whether Santa ever filed a flight plan. The Sole regrets to inform her that NASA’s records are silent on the matter.

In 1967, Schirra and Stafford donated the harmonica and bells to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, where they are still kept.

Why people get it wrong

When we think of music and space, we think of songs about space, and Bowie’s Space Oddity is the obvious one. But the first tune played on instruments in orbit had nothing to do with rockets at all.

The Jingle Bells moment was also a playful stunt rather than an official event, so it rarely appears in the big highlight reels of the space race. Small, funny moments tend to get lost next to rockets and moonwalks.

The Wiper has reviewed the performance and rules it a fair and legal first, melody only, no backing band. He then forgot what song it was and hummed something else entirely.

“First song in space and it was Jingle Bells on a harmonica the size of a thumb. That’s the most Christmas thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve been trodden on at a school nativity.”