Cue that XKCD comic, you know the one

August 8, 2016 2:54 PM

Because there's nobody else to do it, every year the Curiosity Rover sings itself a happy birthday song.
posted by MartinWisse (57 comments total)

You mean this one?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:04 PM on August 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

:_)
posted by mazola at 3:20 PM on August 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

This both makes me feel inexplicably sad, and hopeful that, one day, all the balloons in Paris will come for that little rover.
posted by sonascope at 3:23 PM on August 8, 2016 [27 favorites]

to quote a tumblr post that was going around as an image capture on twitter (ah, internets) the other day:

No guys you don’t understand.

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.

posted by karayel at 3:26 PM on August 8, 2016 [157 favorites]

Happy Birthday to me
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe
Attack ships and C-beams...
Happy Birthday to me
(Time to die)
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:31 PM on August 8, 2016 [37 favorites]

Rover petters, the lot of you.

Strong men also cry.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:35 PM on August 8, 2016 [23 favorites]

Many of you are sad for the rover. This is because you are crazy! It's just a rover and the new one is much better.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:43 PM on August 8, 2016 [28 favorites]

I don't think we should ascribe emotions to robots. We don't know that it's lonely. There may be invisible Martian robots sharing its birthday, making it Martian robot cake, and watching us with an intellect both
posted by maxsparber at 3:44 PM on August 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

You and me both, li'l Rover. You and me both 😢
posted by comealongpole at 3:44 PM on August 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

sonascope, may the Red Balloon one day find Rover and lift it to the stars...
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:46 PM on August 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm still sad because there are none of its people there to celebrate! I am just going to imagine a future down the line where people have parties every year at the Curiosity monument on Mars.
posted by longdaysjourney at 3:47 PM on August 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

(Time to die)

ROBOT SEZ NOPE.
posted by srboisvert at 3:48 PM on August 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Honestly, that made me smile and touched me in the feels.
posted by bluejayway at 3:51 PM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

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

There would ever be an awkward answer if management asked "okay, explain to me exactly why the soil collector stopped working".
posted by dr_dank at 4:01 PM on August 8, 2016 [10 favorites]

There would ever be an awkward answer if management asked "okay, explain to me exactly why the soil collector stopped working".

How about:

"Well, this is awkward. It was supposed to be a surprise...for you. We...just wanted to wish you a happy birthday as a token of appreciation for your inspired leadership on this project."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:06 PM on August 8, 2016 [9 favorites]

NASA is leaving money on the table by failing to put a speaker on their Mars rovers. They could have people call a 900 number and for $29.99 per minute, you could Tell Mars What You Think. I'm guessing there are a whole lot of people who have opinions they think Mars needs to hear.
posted by straight at 4:07 PM on August 8, 2016 [38 favorites]

Heck, I would.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:09 PM on August 8, 2016 [4 favorites]

I am SO SUSCEPTIBLE to this and have such pity every damn year for the poor lonely little robot singing to itself on its birthday. (I will pet each and every crouton.)
posted by merriment at 4:09 PM on August 8, 2016 [14 favorites]

It almost makes me sad that Happy Birthday is now in the public domain, because I just imagined the lawyers for Patty and Mildred Hill's estate impotently shaking their fists at the plucky little Mars robot, thumbing whatever constitutes its nose at the very concept of royalties and copyright.
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:10 PM on August 8, 2016 [13 favorites]

No one tell Warner Bros. music licensing.
posted by JHarris at 4:10 PM on August 8, 2016

NASA is leaving money on the table by failing to put a speaker on their Mars rovers. They could have people call a 900 number and for $29.99 per minute, you could Tell Mars What You Think.

But I'd like to imagine it would be free if you call from work.
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:17 PM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

You mean this one?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:04 PM on August 8 [3 favorites +] [!]

Or maybe this one.
posted by McCoy Pauley at 4:19 PM on August 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

ROBOT FEELINGS
posted by poffin boffin at 4:21 PM on August 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

My Roomba is unimpressed. Still a lot of dust on Mars.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:27 PM on August 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Lonely little robot...
posted by shockingbluamp at 4:30 PM on August 8, 2016

so we sent a robot to a far-off planet and force it to sing in self-mockery of its own abandonment. Isn't this the origin story of the Shrike
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:33 PM on August 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

Mini McGee loves Curiosity so much I had to make him a plushie.

when I worry it's lonely I imagine it can warg into the doll where it is well-snuggled
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:42 PM on August 8, 2016 [42 favorites]

It's OK - Curiosity won't get a visit from the rights lawyers.

ALthough - darn it - that may just have been the best way to fund a manned mission from the private sector....
posted by Devonian at 4:44 PM on August 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, great - you've taught the robots to warg?! There'll be no stopping them now!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:45 PM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Another Tumblr post going around as a screencap on Twitter:

gosh but like we spent hundreds of years looking up at the stars and wondering “is there anybody out there” and hoping and guessing and imagining

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us– we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.

posted by Lexica at 4:46 PM on August 8, 2016 [101 favorites]

maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars

2019, April: the last human dies of the Superflu virus that broke out in mid-2017

2019, August: Curiosity sings its lonely song to itself
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:14 PM on August 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

Shouldn't the robot be using Mars years instead of Earth years to track its birthday?
posted by mattamatic at 5:51 PM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh my god, this is the BEST!!! Thanks for posting!
posted by lemonade at 6:20 PM on August 8, 2016

SpaceX will miss a golden opportunity (no pun intended) if they don't wish Curiosity a happy birthday, in person (well, at least with another robot), in 2018.
posted by bh at 6:38 PM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

The proper birthday song for an exoplanetary rover isn't "Happy Birthday." It's "Mogwai Fear Satan."
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 6:45 PM on August 8, 2016

I'm just curious about one thing: the atmosphere on mars is a lot thinner than the one we have here on earth. How does that affect how someone would "hear" the song if they were standing next to Curiosity (assuming for the moment they could stand on mars w/o a pressure suit of some sort) while it played it?

I'll take my answer on the air. Thanks!
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:48 PM on August 8, 2016

Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the Mars 2020 rover is most likely to have a microphone, but it doesn't have an instrument like the one that Curiosity is using to sing. It'll still make noises, but I don't think it'll be able to sing.
posted by tclark at 6:49 PM on August 8, 2016

Um, I love the Mars rovers as much as the next geek, but Curiosity informed everyone today that it only sang itself happy birthday once. It's not an every year thing.
posted by olinerd at 6:56 PM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad

No, we want to find the aliens so we can "borrow" some of their stuff for a hot date on Saturday.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:05 PM on August 8, 2016

It's "Mogwai Fear Satan."

Rovers Will Be Skeletons
posted by curious nu at 7:15 PM on August 8, 2016

It sang. Happy Birthday. on Mars.
It was already awesome, that's just the candle on top.
posted by otherchaz at 7:22 PM on August 8, 2016

That xkcd comic is like one of those episodes of Futurama. Everytime you watch you know what's coming but you want to watch anyways, and then end up grossly sobbing by the end of it.
posted by littlesq at 7:22 PM on August 8, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'd imagine space travellers (robotic and not) would still track their age in terms of their home world, but maybe not (especially if they don't plan on a return trip). Here's a fun little calculator for figuring out your age in Martian years. I personally just got my Martian driver's liscense.
posted by codacorolla at 7:30 PM on August 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Mini McGee loves Curiosity so much I had to make him a plushie.

Oh man, I wish I could've had a plushie of a real, live, spacefaring robot when I was a kid.
posted by ridgerunner at 9:10 PM on August 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I did an out loud squee (more of an eeeee) at the picture of the plushie rover.

I hope the next Mars rover has googly eyes. Surely the NASA or SpaceX budget has enough wiggle room for googly eyes.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 10:38 PM on August 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.

I don't know how many times this has appeared on my tumblr dashboard, and every single time I end up crying...
posted by snakeling at 12:03 AM on August 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

they called us discovery;
they called us curiosity;
they called us explorer;
they called us spirit.

That's not my name
That's not my name
That's not my name
That's not my...
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:19 AM on August 9, 2016 [5 favorites]

Many of you are sad for the rover. This is because you are crazy! It's just a rover and the new one is much better.

"Sol 3285: 2920 sols since I hummed Happy Birthday to myself. Don't think I'll do that this year. I'm hoping I find some more iddingsite samples, the crew back home was really excited about the last batch ... What's that glint on the horizon, it's the wrong place for Phobos and it's too bright to be Deneb, which is still under the horizon unless I've lost all my wits ... getting brighter ... It's moving? It's moving! This is the best surprise party ever!"
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:49 AM on August 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Needs some half-choked lonely tears mixed among the musical notes. Kind of like the first 25 seconds of this.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:42 AM on August 9, 2016

As I often do in Mars Rover posts, I will once again link to John Updike's excellent poem from over a decade ago, Duet On Mars.
posted by hippybear at 2:17 AM on August 9, 2016

And there will come soft rains...
posted by Kinbote at 4:59 AM on August 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Somewhere in the world ITAPPMONROBOT knowingly and pointedly ejects and then retracts its optical drive.
posted by middleclasstool at 5:12 AM on August 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's a fun little calculator for figuring out your age in Martian years

I don't trust it. Entering my birthday 08/24, it calculates that on earth, my next birthday is August, 23...
posted by ojemine at 5:46 AM on August 9, 2016

Better than a rover singing about its self-doubt.
posted by MrGuilt at 5:53 AM on August 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o'clock! as if it were afraid nobody would.
posted by sonascope at 6:56 AM on August 9, 2016 [3 favorites]

I thought you were talking about this one.
posted by domo at 10:55 AM on August 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I know it's ridiculous to anthropomorphise these machines but, really, how can you not?

When I heard that the Rosetta spacecraft is soon to land on the comet where it left Philae in 2014, my first thought was to imagine the two of them using their last dying gasp of battery power to snake out a cable toward one another so they could be holding hands when the end came.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:25 PM on August 9, 2016 [9 favorites]