Captured by the Cassini spacecraft, the noises you’re hearing are emissions directly from Saturn, which have been altered so humans can interpret them. Though the general patterns of the emissions remain intact, what we get is beautiful and sweeping ambient noise, which is being added to my iPhone play list right behind Eno, Canavarro and Cage. Via Tomorrowland

Listen now at NASA.gov

Launched in 1977, the Voyager spacecraft contains a gold-plated phonograph record, which contains sounds and images selected to protray the diversity of life on Earth. Hoping that it finds it’s way into the hands of intelligent extraterrestrial life forms, the Voyager spacecraft will take about 40,000 years to come near another star, if it survives that long of course. The contents of the Golden Record are well documented throughout history, but now, thanks to the internet, you can listen to the audio contained on the record directly through your browser. The more I listen, the more I imagine a late-night 70s sci-fi film, tracking humanities history through it’s low-quality sound effects and recording techniques.

Hear more: The sounds of Voyager’s Golden Record | Golden Record entry @ Wikipedia

SpaceX, the private space transportation company started by ex-PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, is currently counting down for an unmanned demo launch of their Falcon I space module. With several delays so far it’s looking like the launch will take place later this evening Pacific Standard Time, meaning I’ll probably be asleep while this puppy is hopefully heading up to the stars. Musk is said to have invested over $100,000,000 of his own money, so let’s hope this demo flight goes well.

Read more: Spacex updates as they happen

Ahhhh, artists, how I love your crazy ideas. An art group are proposing an extremely odd (and interesting) project / installation which would involve placing a gigantic banana over Texas, floating 30km to 50km above the US state for around 1 month. The banana will be constructed much like a blimp, with a 300 meter long semi-rigid structure made from bamboo, encased with a helium-filled skin of synthetic paper. The project is supposedly in it’s final stage of engineering and a launch time is currently being scheduled for August 2008. Real or not, I’d love to see the reaction to a giant banana floating over the Bush ranch, though I’d assume it would be seen as a giant risk to national security and subsequently shot down.

Read more: Geostationary banana over Texas

French photobugs have been hard at work, taking pictures of the heavens, from moon phases to the Aurora Borealis, and posting them on celestial hobby photos page Photo Astronomique. One such project is a collection of pretty-good quality photos of every full moon since May 2005, compiled into a nifty little flash animation. Something about good quality photos of the moon is just so perfectly relaxing.

See more: 20 consecutive full moon slideshow

One of many recent videos from the space shuttle Atlantis, this video is a 4 minute long visual wonderland as the booster rockets of the shuttle fall back to earth mid-launch. A good soundtrack is recommended, like Brian Eno or something similar.

While the Soviet Union was still trudging along heavily, there was a successful Soviet space program to build a Soviet fleet of space shuttles, allowing the U.S.S.R to compete with the Americans in space. Naturally, as with all public works when the Soviet government fell, many of the higher-ups in these programs made off with billions of state-money, effectively bankrupting the Russian space program for the foreseeable future. But there were several successful space trips made by the Buran shuttle, which oddly enough, I never heard about In the US back when I was a kid (hmmmmmm). Thankfully, our Eastern blogrades at English Russia have put up a wealth of photos and videos, along with some technical information about Mother Russia’s failed shuttle program.

Read more: Photos of the Russian space shuttle Buran @ English Russia

The first human-spaceflight mission since the disastrous explosion of the shuttle Columbia has begun it’s 3-day countdown to launch. The astronauts prepping for mission STS-121 aboard the space shuttle Discovery are assured the ship is safe to fly it’s 32nd space flight, after year-long testing of the craft. STS-121 will spend 12-days in space, delivering new supplies and a new ESA (European Space Agency) tenant to the International Space Station, performing various in-orbit repairs, and performaning general maintenance and tests. Those interested can watch the launch online via NASA TV, Saturday, July 1st.

[NASA shuttle missions page | NASA TV]

[Update 2. Today's launch was again scrubbed due to weather. The next open-window will occur around 2:38 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, July 4. If the launch takes place on this day, it will be the first space shuttle launch performed on the U.S. Independence Day holiday.]

[Update 1. The Discovery launch has been delayed due to weather concerns around Cape Canaveral. The launch has been rescheduled for July 2nd, at 3:26pm EDT]

Sven Grahn in Sweden has an amazingly interesting hobby. He’s a spy satellite tracker, born out of his desire to find out what really was going on in outer space during the Cold War. Other than tracking the satellites, Sven also records the radio signals that these spy machines, many not even having record of their existence, send back to earth. What appears to be white noise and random bleeps to some, is a symphony of cold war technology, outer space mystery and dreams to others (this coming from someone who’s other projects are all named after NASA space programs).

[Satellite tracking notes | Sounds of outer space] (Via The Coudal Partners)