UN tops NASA’s interstellar playlist
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If you visit UN Headquarters, a replica of the Golden Record is on display alongside other space oddities, including an actual piece of the Moon.“It was the greatest feeling I ever had in my entire life,” said one astronaut. “Seeing the black sky and the bright sun. This is really impossible, but I saw it.”In 1990, 17 astronauts from around the world shared their out-of-this-world experiences in Our Planet Earth, a timeless documentary produced for the UN by Lemle Pictures, Inc. with cooperation of the Association for Space Explorers and the Canadian International Development Agency.
In 1977 and 1978, at the request of Grenada, the General Assembly took up the issue of UFOs.
Did the General Assembly ever consider UFOs?
United States astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins visit UN Headquarters in New York in 1969. (file)In this photo, taken by astronaut Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin walks on the surface of the Moon in 1969. (file)One summed up a commonly shared feeling among the space travellers, saying “I felt a love for all the inhabitants of the Earth. I just wanted to love them all.”Right after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, UNOOSA, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, was established and has since been monitoring developments across more than 77 successful lunar missions as well as other journeys into space. These days, the UN space agency is getting ready to host the UN Conference on Sustainable Lunar Activities in Vienna in June.A view of the Earth and a satellite as seen from outer space.
Before launching into space in 1977, the United States space agency, NASA, asked the UN to provide materials for a playlist to record an album – the “Golden Record” – to be sent to the stars. In fact, the first words on the vinyl record itself are those of the then-UN Secretary-General, expressing hope for peace and friendship with whoever discovers and plays it.
Fresh from the Moon walk
In 1959, the General Assembly created a committee to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity for peace, security and development.
Bill Nye, “The Science Guy” and CEO of the Planetary Society, walks viewers through how to decipher the Golden Record, its significance today and how reverence for the universe can inspire action for our planet.Jumping back further, United States astronauts fresh from a Moon walk visited UN Headquarters to much fanfare in August 1969.
One said he immediately gasped “God is great”.
Meet UNOOSA and COPUOS
Included on the Assembly’s agenda for its 32nd and 33rd sessions was the item “Establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, co-ordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena”.Another said he had to go to the bathroom, which meant draping a curtain around himself, and from a side window, he caught his first glimpse of Earth while hurtling through space.Find links to both Assembly decisions here, courtesy of Ask Dag, the service catering to inquiring minds in Chinese, English, French and Spanish, at the UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library.UN Photo/NASA
Watch UNOOSA’s latest youth competition winners here.
‘Like entering a dream state’
Listen to the full UN Radio episode in 1969 on their visit here.
On #ThrowbackThursday, UN News is highlighting epic moments across the UN’s past, cultivated from the UN Audiovisual Library’s 49,400 hours of video recordings and 18,000 hours of audio chronicling.
Instrumental in creating the five treaties and five principles of outer space, the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) has mandated duties that include keeping pace with rapid advances in space technology.Watch the full video here.In 1978, the General Assembly decided to invite “interested Member States to take appropriate steps to coordinate on a national level scientific research and investigation into extraterrestrial life, including unidentified flying objects, and to inform the Secretary-General of the observations, research and evaluation of such activities”.[embedded content]
Neil Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin and Michael Collins of Apollo 11, the first humans to land on the moon, were honoured at a ceremony at the north plaza of the UN General Assembly Building.What’s it like being in outer space?
UN Photo/J. GrindeYet another said he tried clumsily manoeuvring in a state of weightlessness, finding himself awkwardly jammed against a window when he was awestruck by both the view and the magnificence of Earth.
