The day of the forty-four sunsets

The soil testing equipment on Curiosity makes a buzzing noise and the pitch of the noise changes depending on what part of an experiment Curiosity is performing, this is the way Curiosity sings to itself.

So some of the finest minds currently alive decided to take incredibly expensive important scientific equipment and mess with it until they worked out how to move in just the right way to sing Happy Birthday, then someone made a cake on Curiosity’s birthday and took it into Mission control so that a room full of brilliant scientists and engineers could throw a birthday party for a non-autonomous robot 225 million kilometres away and listen to it sing the first ever song sung on Mars*, which was Happy Birthday.

This isn’t a sad story, this a happy story about the ridiculousness of humans and the way we love things. We built a little robot and called it Curiosity and flung it into the star to go and explore places we can’t get to because it’s name is in our nature and then just because we could, we taught it how to sing.

That’s not sad, that’s awesome.

just the ol' nine-to-five

in phm, grace just. he cries. he cries because he's alone and sad and scared and he's saying goodbye to two people who must have been his friends but he can't remember. he cries because he's stressed. he cries because his best friend is sending him home and he didn't think he'd ever get to go back. he cries because his best friend is asleep and he doesn't know if he'll ever wake up. he cries because he's found a way to save not only one but two worlds. he cries because he has to give up going home to save his best friend. he cries because he did save him.

idk.

ryland grace cries, frequently, and he is brave. he is brave and a hero and the story's beloved protagonist and he cries about damn near everything.

"And it seems like it's worth your time, right? And, by the way, there's actually- the superpower inside of feeling alien is admitting that you might be an alien."

________

You will be remembered as a hero. ________