POP & ROCK

David Gilmour and Nick Mason--two founding members of the British progressive rock group Pink Floyd--were among the luminaries gathered Saturday at the Soviet Union’s Cosmodrome to watch a Soviet space mission blast off. But, unlike French President Francois Mitterrand and the other VIPs, Gilmour and Mason were also seeing off a bit of themselves: specifically, a cassette copy of the band’s upcoming live album, “The Delicate Sound of Thunder.” The cassette was placed aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz-7 for transport to the space station Mir, where it will be left for future cosmonauts’ enjoyment. Pink Floyd’s move into space came after the cosmonauts told a news conference they enjoyed relaxing to the band’s music. Gilmour returned the compliment: He was so enamored of the idea of being in space, he joked, that he “might try to bash one of them on the head and take his place.” That did not happen, however.