Jack White's Third Man Records Plays A Vinyl Record In Space

This past weekend has been very interesting as far as objects falling out of the sky is concerned. One being the first man to jump 25,000 out of an airplane and safely land without the help of a parachute. The other being the first vinyl record being played in space courtesy of Jack White's Third Man Records.

In celebration of its 7th anniversary and for pressing 3 million vinyl records, Third Man Records had a custom-made record player called "Icarus," designed specifically to be "space-proof" while playing "A Glorious Dawn" by Carl Sagan.

According to the label's website, "The craft reached a peak altitude of 94,413 feet at 1:21:20 flight time (roughly 1000/feet/minute) when the balloon burst (a truly beautiful sight) and the descent began." Amazingly, the record player managed to continue to function even after heavily landing back on Earth. "Once the return to Earth began (with the craft attached to a parachute and falling about 4x faster than it rose), the turntable automatically went into 'turbulence mode,' where the record continued to spin, but the tone arm was triggered to lift from the record surface and stay in its locked position, to protect both the needle and the record itself. When Icarus reached the ground - a vineyard, to be exact - the record still spun, unfazed by its journey."



(source: Third Man Records)