He wasn’t kidding.
A while ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared an image of his own red Tesla Roadster being mounted int he composite fairing of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, a prototype heavy-load rocket that’s designed to be capable of bringing large cargo into orbit. Musk’s odd sense of humour continued though, after he decided that David Bowie’s Space Oddity should play on repeat through the stereo, and that Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series of books should be loaded into a storage disc and hidden in the vehicle.
The original idea was to have the car launch from the SpaceX rocket (that would then return to earth) and then settle somewhere in Mars’ orbit. However, a six-hour “coast” phase of the rocket, executed to show some sort of inter-orbital manoeuvring to the US Air Force, saw the rocket complete its last engine burn a little too successfully, which then saw the vehicle launched into a trajectory that exceeded Mars’ orbit.
According to The Verge, the Roadster, replete with the Starman, will now travel closer to the orbit of Ceres, a dwarf planet that (obviously) lives in the shadow of Mars.
While carmakers like Volvo and Nissan continue to explore uses for decommissioned electric car battery packs, we’re not sure what to make of Elon Musk turning deep space into a landfill for old Teslas.
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