updated 3:54 p.m. EST, Fri February 1, 2008


NASA to beam Beatles song to North Star
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Monday, NASA will beam the Beatles' "Across the Universe" to the North Star
It celebrates the song's 40th anniversary and NASA's 50th
The North Star, Polaris is 2.5 quadrillion miles away
It will take 431 years to reach Polaris and can't be heard without an antenna
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Beatles are about to become radio stars in a whole new way.

NASA on Monday will broadcast the Beatles' song "Across the Universe" across the galaxy to Polaris, the North Star.

This first-ever beaming of a radio song by the space agency directly into deep space is nostalgia-driven. It celebrates the 40th anniversary of the song, the 45th anniversary of NASA's Deep Space Network, which communicates with its distant probes, and the 50th anniversary of NASA.

"Send my love to the aliens," Paul McCartney told NASA through a Beatles historian. "All the best, Paul."

The song, written by McCartney and John Lennon, may have a ticket to ride and will be flying at the speed of light. But it will take 431 years along a long and winding road to reach its final destination. That's because Polaris is 2.5 quadrillion miles away.

NASA loaded an MP3 of the song, just under four minutes in its original version, and will transmit it digitally at 7 p.m. EST Monday from its giant antenna in Madrid, Spain. But if you wanted to hear it on Polaris, you would need an antenna and a receiver to convert it back to music, the same way people receive satellite television.

The idea came from Martin Lewis, a Los Angeles-based Beatles historian, who then got permission from McCartney, Yoko Ono and the two companies that own the rights to Beatles' music. One of those companies, Apple, was happy to approve the idea because is "always looking for new markets," Lewis said.

Perhaps coincidentally, the song's launching comes a day before the release of the DVD of the Julie Taymor movie named after the Beatles hit.

ISKCON failed: NASA should have sent the Prabhupada japa tape, but what can be done?
It's kali yuga and the world is controlled by democratic demons. Worm ashram . . .

Actually Epitau, you got it wrong. The seed was in fact delivered in the form of the sacred syllable OM, the pranava, it was merely couched in that beautiful and thoughtful song. “Jai Gurudeva….Om…”, this is within the song Across the Universe that was beamed. And NASA doesn’t even know if there is a receiver at the other end, and that would have to be a mechanical antenna. What are the odds?

So NASA failed whereas the Krishna Conscious International Society, whatever, though not a technological society, has, by sending the subtle transcendental sound vibration, powered by the inconceivable soul, already gone Across the Universe and beyond. Instantaneous communication, no loss in power over space and time. Sound of the nature of being the same as it’s object, one and different. The yogis too have also surpassed NASA since time immemorial. Living in the heart dimension. That is the stable aspect of the universe for communication. Nicola Tesla would approve this statement, I believe.

You believe in Radio signals? When the fact that the senders of the radio-beamed song (NASA) will all be dead for hundreds of years by the time the signal is received, but that we should admire and have faith in this bonafide scientific endeavor (what?). And it could even come to pass that some alien with a satellite receiver is going to groove on the song, but you’ll never get to know any of it, you just have to believe and just imagine. That’s until we are invaded by demonic aliens, who bled right into the Kali Yuga time warp, unnoticed because of the bombardment of radio signals, but who were so sinful they could not hear the sacred syllable in their hardened hearts, or because their equiptment was set at the wrong frequency to receive our friendly message…ahh…but we’ll be dead for that too. What universe do you live in anyway? Oh! What a great thing these NASA heroes have done!

Hahahahahahaha, I thought this was one of the funniest sentences in the whole report! Interstellar commerce. What a good move by Apple/Steve Jobs!

that would be apple records and not apple computer

Just behold the power of pure bhakti stretching out across infinite multitudes of parallel universes!

george wanted to shave up but prabhupada said it would be better with him as a hairy krishna

I have always wondered why we here on earth never hear radio signals (or any other type of transmissions) from other planets and civilizations out there, if indeed they are out there somewhere. Perhaps we don't have the subtle advanced technology to hear it, or are those noises in our head coming from a place other than ourselves?

wouldn't this be advaita bhakti across the universe since this song was from the time of when beatles where under the influence of the maharshi?

Druva Loka will hear it 400 years from now.

One proof that there is intelligent life in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

Yes that is mostly true, but some of us where left behind when the Captain learned of her landing coordinates mistake and left too hastily ... yearning for home, all I can say is ... oh how art thou dear Mundahla of the 47 Ursae Majoris?

mabu is also proof there is intelligent life from other planets

Easy Journey to other Planets? A moment in the time of lord brahma equaling a year in earth's time? That makes perfect sense. So by that calculation, the residents of brahma loka should hear Across the Universe by this time next year, and (specualting here) maybe they might beam back some updated versions of the Govindam Prayers

Maybe other planets skipped radio and went straight to other technologies that don't bleed into space in the same way. Perhaps they are deaf and use other senses (telepathy) to communicate. Or perhaps, being way out on the arm of the galaxy, without many stars nearby (comparatively), we are just missing out on all the fun.

But Seti hasn't finished crunching all the data we've collected yet, and is gathering more all the time. It's a big sky.

Is she from Venus?
Or from some other Class M planet?

on other planets, they have strawberries the size of trucks that when the fall to the ground, form a river of strawberry nectar. on the shores of the banks of the strawberry river, are the most beautiful of damsels wishing to get focked by anyone. if i had such things available to me, i wouldn't be wasting time trying to invent a stupid focking radio. further proof as well the et's aren't gay, maybe bisexual

Atala's certainly a fine place for the summer.