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NASA HAS CARRIED out another ground-breaking first – broadcasting music from another planet.
‘Reach for the Stars’ by will.i.am was successfully broadcast on Mars by the rover Curioristy and beamed the 700 million miles (1,126 million km) back to Earth yesterday.
The musician has been helping NASA to promote its STEM programme which aims to draw more young people into studying science, technology engineering and math.
Speaking at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California during a special event for the live broadcast, will.i.am said:
Today is about inspiring young people to lead a life without limits placed on their potential and to pursue collaboration between humanity and technology through STEAM education. I know my purpose is to inspire young people, because they will keep inspiring me back.
NASA researchers were feeling the beat during the broadcast:
YouTube: collectspace
NASA Associate Administrator for Education and space shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin said that the broadcast and the agency’s work to inspire students was a fitting way to celebrate the life and achievements of late Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong.
“That first footprint that Neil placed on the lunar surface left an indelible mark in history,” Melvin said.
“Perhaps one of our students here today or watching on NASA Television will be the first to set foot on the surface of Mars and continue humanity’s quest to explore.”
If you could have chosen one track to beam back to Earth from space, what would it have been? Add your suggestions to the comments below.
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Would we clean up our own shop first. Deal with our own homeless and poverty first and then worry about the world.
@John Moloney: we have plenty of opportunities to study for free through springboard.ie
Good to hear this. I spoke to several Ukrainians last week who were college students at home and would like to study here but didn’t know how to go about it. Hopefully there are similar information sessions in different parts of the country as the refugees are well spread out.
@Gerry McCaughey: don’t suppose by any chance you’ve had time to ask them where they will be accomodated while they take up thos great opportunity? Because my kids going to college can’t get accomodation?
@Patricia O’Brien: one of the girls I spoke to was being accommodated by the family of her Irish friend who have been so good to her. I saw videos she took on her phone that make what we saw in Bucha seem mild. The rest were all being housed in a hotel in the town I was working in that day which I won’t name. All I’m sure would rather be in their home country worrying about boys and grades than worrying about which of the family members they had to leave behind they might not see again. Puts a perspective on things, don’t you think?
@Gerry McCaughey: I wont apologose for being pissed off with the housing or accomodation situation in this country, there are families who have been in hotels and b and bs for years, silently waiting for housing, constantly overlooked, with kids who have NO chance of going to college, so spare me the smug comments, pity u don’t have the same compassion for those people… but then it’s fashionable to get involved in ukraines war but not so fashionable to be concerned about whats been going on on your own door step.
have your say