Earlier this month, Third Man Records, the brainchild of Jack White (of The White Stripes fame), made history by launching a custom-designed space-proof turntable into space. Commissioned as part of the label's seventh anniversary celebrations, the strange craft, named the 'Icarus', took just over an hour and twenty minutes to make its ascent while attached to a weather balloon. At a maximum height of 94,413ft, the balloon burst, sending the spacefaring turntable plummeting back down to earth. It was recovered not far from the launch site, with the record still spinning.
During its ascent into space, the turntable played a gold-plated LP of Carl Sagan's 'A Glorious Dawn' on repeat, in tribute to the late astronomer.
In the immortal words of head engineer Kevin Carrico: "It's not rocket science, it's balloon science."