Curiosity Will.i.am "Reach For The Stars" Music Playback Goes Off Without A Hitch

We mentioned earlier this week that rapper and Black Eyed Peas alum will.i.am had teamed up with NASA. The goal of the tie up was to encourage students to study science, technology, engineering, and math. As part of the team up between the rapper and NASA, will.i.am's latest single called "Reach for the Stars" was transmitted from the surface of Mars by the curiosity Rover to students and media at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Successful streaming of the track from the surface of Mars makes "Reach for the Stars" the first interplanetary song and secures the song as an anthem for education for NASA. When we first reported that the song would be streamed from the surface of Mars earlier this week, we weren't sure if the song was on board Curiosity or how exactly it would be beamed back to Earth.

NASA still hasn't specifically said how the song was played back from the surface of Mars, stating that the song completed the journey of more than 700,000,000 miles from Earth to Mars and back. That description makes it sound like NASA simply beamed the song from Earth to Curiosity and then Curiosity shot the song back to earth where it was played.

NASA recently did this with a congratulatory message from administrator Charles Bolden. It appears that the song was not stored on the internal memory for the rover, which is no surprise. During the event, NASA engineers also spoke to students and media about the mechanics involved in getting a song back from Mars. Will.i.am's i.am angel Foundation and Discovery Education also announced a $10 million classroom education initiative that will reach 25 million students each year. The initiative will focus on science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.