In April 1986 Jean-Michel Jarre's studio album
Rendez-vous was released. It sold around three million copies worldwide. But something was missing. The final track was supposed to have included the saxophone part recorded on the shuttle Challenger, which would have been the first piece of music recorded in space.
Astronaut Ron McNair, who had a PhD in physics from M.I.T., was also an accomplished saxophonist. But he was killed, along with his crewmates, when the the shuttle broke up 73 seconds after liftoff.
Here is
Dernier rendez-vous (Last rendezvous), saxophone by Pierre Gossez. (It stops suddenly, I don't know how much has been chopped off the end.)