While we're all waiting for the satellite to crash sometime this afternoon, NASA has announced that sound bites from historic space missions are available for download as ringtones or on your computer for events, errors, alarms, and notifications:
The public now can hear the roar of a space shuttle launch or Neil Armstrong's, "One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind," every time they get a phone call. A new NASA web page now has a collection of more than 35 different sounds, each approximately 20 seconds. Examples include:
- Apollo 13's John "Jack" Swigert commenting "Houston, we have a problem"
- Apollo 11: Eagle has landed!
- Apollo 8: Merry Christmas
- Crackle of the historic last launch of the space shuttle, STS-135
- Segments from President John F. Kennedy's historic moon speech
- Sputnik: Beep
- Atlas V Launch
- Sound wave conversions of the light curve waves created by stars discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission and other sounds of planets and stars
- Several versions of shuttle launches
- Saturn radio emissions
... and more.
The NASA sounds are available in both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) files. NASA will update the collection as new sounds become available. To listen to and download the sounds, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/connect/sounds
The NASA App for Android allows users to easily preview and set the sounds as ringtones.
How to add M4R ringtones to your iPhone:
http://www.nasa.gov/connect/sounds/iphone_install_directions.html
To download the most recent version of the NASA App for Android, visit:
https://market.android.com/details?id=gov.nasa