# Mars Rover and music

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mars-rover-and-music/231116>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 25, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mars-rover-and-music/231116 "2004-02-25T15:55:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RiverRunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@RiverRunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiverRunner)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mars-rover-and-music/231116/1 "2004-02-25T15:55:29Z")

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After a fairly extended SDMB posting absence, I have to post this question:

While reading [this site about the Mars rover Opportunity](http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_opportunityAll.html#sol25) I come across such sentences as:  
_Observations by the panoramic camera and miniature thermal emission spectrometer were completed successfully on sol 20. The sol’s wake-up music was “I Like Dirt,” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and “Pioneers of Mars,” by Karen Linsley and Lloyd Landa._

Do the researchers actually send some sort of music to Opportunity, perhaps as a memory test or some such?  
RR

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**Author:** ![arteitle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@arteitle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arteitle)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mars-rover-and-music/231116/2 "2004-02-25T16:01:35Z")

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It’s traditional to wake up human astronauts with music, and they’re continuing that tradition by playing the music in mission control for their own enjoyment. They don’t actually transmit music to the rovers.

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**Author:** ![RiverRunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@RiverRunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RiverRunner)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mars-rover-and-music/231116/3 "2004-02-25T16:17:05Z")

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> [@arteitle](#):
>
> It’s traditional to wake up human astronauts with music, and they’re continuing that tradition by playing the music in mission control for their own enjoyment. They don’t actually transmit music to the rovers.

Thanks. I was hoping maybe I could get a job at NASA as the music-picker. Maybe I could call myself a “Waveform Optimization Engineer” or something.  
RR

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**Author:** ![McDeath\_the\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McDeath_the_Mad)\
**Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mars-rover-and-music/231116/4 "2004-02-25T17:31:00Z")

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I remember the last rover that crashed and burned add an external microphone attached to it.

They were saying you could go to a website and “listen” to the surface of Mars.

Pretty cool, I wish they would have done it on this mission as well.

MtM