Will.I.Am made history last month when his song, Reach For The Stars, became the first song to ever be broadcast from another planet back to Earth. On August 6, NASA's spacecraft, Curiosity, landed on the planet Mars and the song traveled over 700 million miles from Earth to Mars and back again.

On Wednesday (September 19), the Science Channel aired i.am.mars: Reach for the Stars, a special detailing the behind the scenes creative and technological processes involved in it all.

In a statement, Will.I.Am said that NASA administrator Charlie Bolden reached out to him after Bolden saw him on the 2011 ABC special i.am FIRST: Science is Rock and Roll last August. He invited Will.I.Am to the Curiosity launch that fall, which is where the idea began of beaming a song down from Mars.

With the help of two youth choirs and a 40-piece orchestra to create the track Reach For The Stars, Will.I.Am sought to inspire. "For us to continue to advance, we need to remember how important it is to give the youth of today all the skill sets for tomorrow. That’s what’s going to change our country around and it’s my new mission now to use music, use my career, to inspire this youth in America", he told the Telegraph.  

- By Natasha Scott