Adam Stoner

Hundreds of voices

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Episode notes

2022 started in the best possible way. Four days into the new year, I launched Mission Transmission on the UK's children's radio station, Fun Kids; our record-breaking, history-making project to send the voices of our listeners to deep space.

Mission Transmission got some nice tweets, was on the front page of Express.co.uk, on RadioToday, in the Week Junior magazine, First News, and Science+Nature too. There's an entire episode of Mysteries of Science dedicated to it – that one's called How to Talk to Aliens. The Radio Academy interviewed me – that's forming part of a new podcast they've got coming out this coming month – and I was on BBC Radio Gloucestershire. My university also spoke to me about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into something like this. 

By far the most rewarding thing this month has been hearing literally hundreds of voices sent in around-the-clock from kids across the world who want to be a part of our broadcast. I feel so grateful to share this experience with them and know that if I were twenty years younger, I'd be submitting my own voice too.

This is the biggest thing I've ever done. It's filled with prestigious people and places; the Royal Observatory Greenwich, Guinness World Records, KIDZ BOP creating a song for us, covering two of the biggest bands in the world, BTS and Coldplay. The 1975 are letting us use their song featuring Greta Thunberg and there's loads more up our sleeve. 

214 email chains (some 40 messages deep), 24 hours of submitted audio, 12 interviews with space experts around the world including Jon Lomberg, creator of the Voyager Golden Record, and over 120 other people have been involved in making this thing a reality. Soon, we'll reach a point where the radio programme is finished. All it takes is the click of a button to stream it to 10,000 of Earth's closest stars and start it on a journey that will last forever. 

There's still time to get your voice into space at FunKidsLive.com 📡

Say hey 👋 [email protected]

You'll next hear from me on February 28th 2022.

Oh, and make a note in your calendars: Fun Kids, February 21st, 7pm.