91av

COMMUNICATION is key. Indeed, that’s why 91av exists: to communicate science to the world. And possibly beyond… we were concerned that, once humans had made their way to the moon, disparate groups of lunar explorers might be unable to communicate with each other, let alone Earth. Radio waves, we opined, would not be constrained by an atmosphere and would therefore travel in straight lines out into space. The solution, it seemed, was to scatter “metallic needles” into orbit that were “capable of reflecting radio waves of given frequency”, so creating an artificial ionosphere to reflect the signals back to listeners elsewhere on the moon.

By 1977, the sun had got involved. Solar energy was being used to power a microwave communications link between the towns of Alice Springs and Tennant Creek in Australia’s Northern Territory. Smaller systems were already running across the country, but not on the scale needed in this case: a distance of almost 600 kilometres. that the new system would be able to relay television programmes too, although unfortunately a few years too late to watch the moon landings.

It was all a bit more mundane, but perhaps more technologically significant, by the time 1994 came around. 91av announced on 11 June that the first digital radio transmissions would be launched in the UK later that year. Analogue concerns still remained though: apparently those broadcasting the new signals had agreed not to give advance warning of which music would be played “to discourage home taping”. But coded details of the artist and recording would also be transmitted so listeners could “buy what they have heard and liked”, which was expected to boost record sales. Communications were clearly evolving, as indeed they continue to at an ever-increasing speed, although presumably the audience on the moon for either digital or analogue broadcasts remains limited.