As publicity stunts go, this is slightly cooler and crazier than most. To celebrate the seventh anniversary of his record label, Third Man Records, White Stripes frontman Jack White launched a specially designed turntable into space, playing a speech on vinyl by late astronomer Carl Sagan - which had been set to music. The working contraption was attached to a weather balloon and reached a height of 28,000 metres before the balloon burst and the turntable came crashing back to earth, landing in a vineyard (but still playing)!
Special adjustments had to be made to ensure that the record would still play outside of the Earth's atmosphere, given that the melting point of vinyl is just 77 degrees celsius. The entire flight, which lasted around 80 minutes, was streamed online. Whether 28,000 metres counts as 'space,' I'm not entirely sure; though I'm fairly certain this is the first instance of a vinyl record playing on a turntable suspended from a balloon! Make of that what you will. Just for the record, the recording played was Carl Sagan's 'A Glorious Dawn'.
