In 1977 humanity sent 27 of its greatest songs into space in the Voyager Golden Record. Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube Waltz, one of the most famous and beloved masterpieces widely considered the unofficial “Anthem of Space’ due to its feature in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, was not aboard the mission. To celebrate the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II, the Vienna Tourist Board will rectify this omission and send Strauss’s masterpiece “The Blue Danube” into deep space.

On May 31 2025, Vienna is set to broadcast the waltz to the farthest reaches of the universe, creating a musical bridge between humanity and potential extraterrestrial life. The Blue Danube, performed by the ‘Wiener Symphoniker’ (Vienna Symphony Orchestra) in Vienna at a special concert at Vienna’s MAK Museum, will be digitised and transmitted via the European Space Agency’s deep space communication facilities at Cebreros, Spain. The signal will continue indefinitely, travelling at 299,792 km/s - the speed of light, and will surpass Voyager 1 in about 23 hours and 3 minutes.

In collaboration with Jung von Matt DONAU, the ‘Wiener Symphoniker’ and the European Space Agency, the ‘Waltz into Space’ campaign aims to help the Vienna tourist board to reach the far corners of space with Vienna’s exquisite musical heritage.

The project has been launched alongside a humorous campaign film that speculates as to why The Blue Danube was not included on the Voyager Golden Record. A Mission Director (played by Adam Astill) is counting down the shuttle as it prepares to launch when the team realise that    The Blue Danube is not aboard. Instead, the record has been forgotten as the Mission Director’s love for the famous Viennese Waltz resulted in him listening to it himself at home, forgetting to return it in time for takeoff. 

The spot, directed by Bart Timmer, includes original footage from NASA documenting the launch of the Voyager spacecraft in 1977.

The film will be live from March 10 to May 2 and will air in nine countries. The film is accompanied by a microsite that outlines all the important information about the mission. Audiences can also go to the site to adopt one of the 13.743 notes from the waltz, linking each individual name to its journey into deep space, connecting them interactively to Vienna’s musical heritage and making them a part of the cultural moment.

‘Waltz into Space’ is the latest in a series of innovative campaigns born from the creative collaboration between the Vienna Tourist Board and Jung von Matt DONAU, previous campaigns have included placing famous risqué Vienna artworks on OnlyFans, introducing a "microdose Vienna" pill, and creating an augmented reality avatar of Sigmund Freud to encourage people to visit the city.

Pushing the limits of creativity into space, the campaign celebrates Vienna’s history and heritage by sharing its art with the world.