What’s the best possible use of a $2.5 billion Mars rover mission? If you’re Will.i.am, you take advantage of Curiosity’s time on Mars to broadcast a new song you wrote to endorse President Barack Obama.
The new single, “Reach For The Stars,” is being broadcast from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California to the Mars rover. The event is set to take place on Tuesday at 4 pm Eastern, and it will be fully viewable via NASA’s livestream .
The song, which was uploaded to YouTube on August 26, has led Will.i.am to travel to NASA’s command center where he will have the chance to watch as his song makes its planetary debut.
This is not the first time Will.i.am has worked with NASA; the space exploration fan has appeared in a NASA promotional film in which he has explained how NASA created technology has helped create clean water, solar electricity for refrigeration, and even better ways to keep food fresh as it travels to market.
While Will.i.am has the distinct honor of being the first artist to have a song broadcast on Mars, he is not the first soundbite to grace the red planet; that honor belongs to NASA administrator Charlie Bolden.
So now, the NASA Curiosity rover has the distinct privilege of adding music streaming to its super high-resolution picture taking and rock blasting laser capabilities.
You can listen to the song here:
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Do you think using the Mars Curiosity rovers audio capabilities to broadcast a Will.i.am song is a silly exercise in publicity?
