Bruce Woodley Hopes To Play The Pipes In Space

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After sixteen years of winning Scotland's most esteemed piping competition, the Gold Medal at the Northern Meeting in Inverness, the bag pipper hopes to bag the opportunity to play at space out of 16 finalists.

An engineer from British Colombia, Woodley has made way to be one of the finalists chosen by the bagpipe,bruce woodley,canada out of 5,000 applicants to represent Canada in future NASA space missions, including long-duration space flights on the International Space Station.

"I think it would be great fun to play bagpipes in space," The Scotsman quoted Woodley, as telling the Pipes/Drums website.

Woodley has already commenced to speculate if he will be capable of playing the pipes outside the earth's atmosphere.

"It might be a challenge to get a set of bagpipes 'space certified' from the point of view of flammability," he said.

"Also, launch costs are high to the space station, thus weight might also need to be reduced to be practical for this purpose," he added.

The musician is also considering to modify his pipes to ensure they can be played inside a space ship.

"The space station and shuttle are pressurised to 14.7 psi (standard sea level pressure), but the shuttle also has the capability to operate at a reduced pressure – about 10.5 psi I think – for reasons related to spacewalks," he said.

"I believe the Apollo spacecraft were all about 4 psi cabin pressure, or about 32,000 feet above sea level – in 100 percent oxygen environment. I'm guessing it would be very difficult to play bagpipes and have them sound like anything we hear on the ground without redesign," he added.

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