The music can lighten tense times. During the nail-biting moments before Spirit's descent and landing in January, at the suggestion of team member Rob Manning, Adler played Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

The Beatles tune "We Can Work it Out" greeted the team one morning as it tried to debug computer problems that stalled Spirit for several days. For other reasons that become clear as you read the list, even The Cars get airtime, as does Weird Al Yankovic (either you know his music all too well or you never heard of him).