The Wind of Distant Planets (part 1)
I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my fourth Jamendo album, Points of Departure. This is about the seventh track, The Wind of Distant Planets.
I was born at the end of the Apollo Era. In 1972, when Apollo 17 left the Moon, we had no idea that would be the last visit. In first grade, I imagined that one day there’d be cities in space and bases on the moon. I actually planned to be a starship captain.
Then, the world let us down.
The U.S. gave up. Instead of exploring new territory, instead of inspiring new dreams, we turned inward, choosing to throw money at old problems that haven’t gone away in 10,000 years of civilization.
I only had one last bit of hope remaining from that era. We gave up on sending humans into space. Instead, we sent machines.
Now, this was before the internet. It was before cable television. In those days, there were only three main TV networks, plus PBS and a few wack-o independent stations. When the Voyager space probes went by Jupiter, I waited months to see the photos — they only appeared as passing stories on the news.
Where they were best was in National Geographic. Of course this was a magazine, with a months-long lead time before a story would actually make it to print. So I would wait long months to see those first photos from a distant world.
The cloud bands of Jupiter were amazing. And each of its moons was like a miniature world. Throw in that strange, phantomlike ring, the Great Red Spot, and the nightside lightning bolts, and you can see this was something spectacular — not really a visit to an alien star system, but darn close: a visit to a miniature solar system.
This song, then, is dedicated to the four space probes that first explored the outer planets: Pioneer 1, Pioneer 2, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2. I felt strongly enough about this that it even shaped my concept for the album’s cover art, which is based on the Pioneer plaque.
Maybe the world lost its imagination, but in certain small corners of the solar system, the spirit of exploration lives on.
