Roadster To Mars
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has a history of eccentric publicity stunts. Just last month, his underground tunneling company, the Boring Company, announced that they were offering flamethrowers - labeled 'not flamethrowers' - to get around shipping laws. This month, the quirky billionaire launched his 2008 Tesla Roadster into space.
On February 6, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful rocket, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral in Florida carrying Elon’s own 2008 Roadster. The midnight cherry red car is ‘piloted’ by Starman, a dummy in SpaceX’s flight suit designed for NASA. Through the sound system, David Bowie’s Space Oddity played on loop as the roadster orbited the Earth.
The roadster is currently cruising through space at about seven miles per minute, or 25000 mph, and is headed for Mars. The plan was to lock the car into a 'precessing elliptical orbit' around both Earth and the red planet. However, after the launch, Musk tweeted out that there was a little too much boost from the third stage and the car may find its way closer to the asteroid belt than originally intended.
Starman is expected to float through space for billions of years, or until it is destroyed by debris or radiation. Before the launch, Musk said there was a small chance of Starman crash landing on Mars. However, with the new trajectory, it is unclear where he may end up.
During liftoff, the twenty-seven rocket engines of the Falcon Heavy, essentially three Falcon 9s strapped together, pushed out over 5 million pounds of thrust. The multistage rocket booster then detached themselves, pirouetted in the air, and landed simultaneously. The third stage was not so flawless a descent, it landed in the ocean at approximately three hundred miles per hour, destroying two of the thrusters.
The project was designed as a proof of concept for the Falcon Heavy. Usually, test flights like this would use large blocks of concrete or steel to simulate the weight of cargo. Musk felt the usual way was boring, so he sacrificed his own car to the cause. The Falcon Heavy is designed to deliver up to 70 tonnes to low Earth orbit, about twice the weight of the US’s next largest rocket.
After the launch, SpaceX hosted a live feed from the Tesla as it orbited Earth, producing pictures that are truly out of this world. The star car also featured several nerdy easter eggs for aliens to find, including an inscription that reads "made on Earth by Humans," a figurine of the Tesla and Starman stuck to the dash, and the console screen read "Don’t Panic” in big friendly letters as a nod to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Musk says he hopes this adventure sparks a new space race. The CEO has been vocal in the past about colonizing Mars and needing more focus on interplanetary travel. SpaceX’s new rocket system is much cheaper than the previous one time use boosters, bringing the price of satellite delivery from nearly a billion dollars down to just $90 million. This new,cheaper way to deliver goods to the final frontier is expected to allow for more rapid development in the spacefaring community.