If you’re a space enthusiast, you may have envied your friends who have downloaded their favorite songs to play as ringtones. Be jealous no more! NASA recently released 132 sounds – featuring the audio files from momentous spaceflights, current missions and even sounds of the future – which you can easily download to your phone.
There’s a link below to a NASA site where you can download all 132 sound clips, but we found the following 10 to be some of the most intriguing.
1) Apollo 11: We have a lift-off
One of the most famed space missions of all time, the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969 marked the first manned landing on the moon. On that mission were astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Aldrin is the one who uttered these famous words.
2) Apollo 11: Eagle has landed
Never before had humans been on the surface of the moon, but on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon's Sea of Tranquility. In this clip, you can hear Houston remark: “Roger that… you’ve got a bunch of guys here about to turn blue. We’re breathing again.”
3) Apollo 11: That’s one small step for (a) man
This phrase is perhaps the most quoted when considering the sheer magnificence of manned space missions. Spoken by Neil Armstrong as soon as his feet touched the moon hundreds of thousands of miles away, people across the globe watched in amazement as he took his first steps.
4) Apollo 13: Houston, we’ve had a problem
This isn’t just a line from a Tom Hanks movie. Rather, this marked a very serious moment in space travel. Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970, but the ship did not make its intended landing on the moon due to the explosion of an oxygen tank. The ship, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise, remarkably returned to Earth safely on April 17, 1970.
5) Discovery STS-26: Liftoff
In the first mission following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the Discovery STS-26 launched on September 29, 1988, after nearly three years on the ground. The majority of that time was spent redesigning the rocket boosters that were partly blamed for the failure of the Challenger mission.
6) Discovery STS-26: Nice to be in orbit
This mission was manned by veteran astronauts Frederick Hauck, Richard Covey, John Lounge, George Nelson, and David Hilmers. Hauck, who was the ship’s commander, is the one who said these words.
7) Discovery STS-102: Roger roll
During the 103rd shuttle flight on March 8, 2001, the shuttle launched toward the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver the second full-time crew and more than four tons of supplies and equipment. Interestingly, the countdown for this launch was timed to hit zero at the exact moment that the Earth's rotation carried the launch pad into the plane of the space station's orbit. By doing this, the crew was able to minimize the propellant necessary to reach its target while also improving the chances of reaching the outpost even if an engine failed to perform at full power. The crew for this mission included James Wetherbee, James Kelly, Paul Richards, Andrew Thomas, Yury Usachev, James Voss, and Susan Helms.
8) Discovery STS-131: Sound of launch
For this launch, Discovery was headed once again to the ISS. STS-131 launched on April 5, 2010 and landed at Kennedy Space Center on April 20, 2010, marking the longest flight recorded for Space Shuttle Discovery. This mission, which delivered supplies and a new ammonia tank to the ISS, was the 35th and final night launch of a shuttle. With a whopping seven-person crew, astronauts for this mission included Alan Poindexter, James Dutton, Richard Mastracchio, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, Naoko Yamazaki, and Clayton Anderson.
9) STS-135: Countdown to launch
Using the Atlantis orbiter, STS-135 was the 135th and final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program. The shuttle, which launched on July 8, 2011 and returned to Earth on July 21, 2011, delivered the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) Raffaello and a Lightweight Multi-Purpose Carrier (LMC) to the ISS. Astronauts on board this final shuttle mission included Christopher Ferguson, Douglas Hurley, Sandra Magnus, and Rex Walheim.
10) Sounds of the future: SLS test fire
To date, there have only been tests of the proposed Space Launch Systems (SLS) on a 6.5-foot-tall, scaled model of the entire rocket, accounting for only 2 percent of the size of the actual rocket. SLS is projected to be the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions. In this sound clip, you can hear the test fire of the scaled-down model of the SLS.
Check out NASA’s website for links to all 132 downloadable sounds. The site includes both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files.
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