The Galileo spacecraft was sent on a mission to explore Jupiter that resulted in a journey full of spectacular difficulties, discoveries and surprises. It’s high gain antenna, the primary instrument for communication with Earth, failed. Though a work around was found, that antenna was never recovered. In a shocking turn of events, Galileo was uniquely and miraculously positioned to photograph comet Shoemaker Levy 9 as it collided into Jupiter. The imaging and mapping Galileo made of Jupiter’s moon Europa strongly suggest the presence of water and scientists can’t help but wonder at the possibility of life. As if this narrative were not strong enough already, on September 17th 2003 the mission controllers turned Galileo into Jupiter itself in a suicide intended to protect Jupiter’s moons, especially Europa, from possible contamination should the spacecraft be left operational until uncontrollable.
In celebration of all the hopes and human spirit that embodied the Galileo mission, Redshift Productions created the rock opera Galileo: the Emotional Life of a Spacecraft that brought the lofty dreams to Earth with animations and visuals by moey inc. The opera and the story were covered on ABC Nightline and CBS Sunday morning, September 17, 2003.