A story that I have been working on for years has finally come to an end.

In 2021, I came up with the idea of sending a radio programme to space.

In 2022, we did it. It was called Mission Transmission.

Two nights ago, in 2023, at what is known as the ‘Oscars of the radio industry’ – the ARIAS awards – I picked up not just one but two awards for it…

One was Silver for ‘Moment of The Year’ making Mission Transmission the second best radio moment last year –– and the other was Gold for ‘Creative Innovation’.

And with that, this beautiful project I spent months developing and years talking about is complete. The story is over.

There are more people to say thank you to – KIDZ BOP and the team at Universal Music, DevaWeb – specifically Chris Stevens, the team at Carver PR, astronaut Tim Peake, Jon Lomberg, Peter Beery, everyone at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London but specifically Victoria, the very talented people at Create Productions, the tens and tens of people that came onto the radio and podcasts to talk about the project, the lovely people at The Week Junior and Science and Nature magazine for talking about it so much, and obviously my close personal circle of partners and family and friends too.

You and I will never know the destiny of that radio programme – we’ll never know whether it manages to reach alien life or whether it’s defined forever to float between the stars – but I think it says a huge amount about humankind that we dared to send it in the first place.

And you – whether you were here from the start or are only just finding out about it – thank you for being a part of it too.