It’s probably the biggest news story going: the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch was a complete and total success and among all of the things going on with the event, the one thing everybody seems focused on is one little Tesla Roadster, with a dummy named Starman at the wheel and a very subtle nod to Douglas Adams on the infotainment screen, rocketing through space on it’s way through space in a demonstration flight to prove that Falcon Heavy can launch a payload as far as a Mars orbit, with a Hot Wheels version glued onto the dash (look between the main HVAC vents in the center of the dash, near the windshield.)
Why send a Roadster into space? Why send any car into space? Well, in short, you can boil it down to “because he can”, of course. Elon Musk is the man responsible for just about everything that went on yesterday, from his start with the Roadster as a sharp kick to the door of the automobile world, to the Falcon Heavy itself, one of the most exciting things to happen to space travel since…well, it’s kind of hard to say. I grew up in the era after the 1986 Challenger disaster and very nearly became part of the search team to go pick through the Texas landscape, looking for anything that at one point in time had been the Columbia back in 2003. While space exploration is still above and beyond the top-tier achievements of man, support and interest had been dwindling for years. Columbia‘s breakup felt like a nail was being put into a coffin, and when the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011, it sounded like the final hammer strike. Not that space work has ceased…the astronauts on board the International Space Station have continued on with their missions. But with wars ongoing and the public finding plenty of drama du jour to keep their attentions, someone who loved watching the Shuttles make that rocketing climb into the heavens was at a loss. Now what?
Now we have a 46-year-old man who decided to use his personal car that his own company built as the ballast, to test a theory and prove that his system is the best system for returning to space, expanding beyond even the Earth’s Moon. The Falcon Heavy test is just that…a proving test, nothing more. But think about it: how many people are going to check in on the expected twelve hours of live video footage from the space-travelling Roadster? How many kids are looking at the news or the videos and are sprouting ideas and imaginative concepts, the kinds that further events like these? There might be a jab to NASA with the frivolity of sending a second-hand red car with a dummy at the wheel out into space, but if that’s what is needed to encourage more work on the most ambitious goals that humankind have ever attempted, then so be it.
Besides, you can almost hear the echoing of David Bowie coming from the speakers, can’t you?
“For here am I sitting in a tin can,
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do…”
Got chills watching the launch…shades of July 1969. The only problem could be getting 27 rocket motors to operate as well as 5 F1’s in the Saturn 5. Bravo SpaceX!!!
Yep, hoping this inspires today’s kids to be the next generation of engineers and scientists.
Hope that Tesla roadster has an unlimited milage warranty!
Fire up that Tesla remotely, spin the wheels. First burn out in space on the way to Mars. Overall a great achievement. Watch the video of 2 of the boosters landing perfectly back at the launch site. Just awesome technology.
It wouldn’t have made much sense to risk a real space probe or a human pilot on the first flight of a completely new rocket. And it doesn’t add much to the total cost of the mission to put a joke payload on the rocket instead of a barrel of water, block of concrete, or other inert ballast.
Suppose billions of years from now some far flung alien race will find the car, drop an LS in it and enter some crazy ass burnout contest on their home planets southern hemisphere?
Seeing this Geek Of Geeks named his shitty company after one of the greatest geniuses of all time couldn’t he have broken out some of his hero’s papers that he got from the FBI and made a space craft that was launched on a beam of electricity? Better still he could have replaced Starman and went for a space walk without his helmet on…..
jeez yer back then? still whinging?
I saw a shot of mission control. All a bunch of 20 somethings with messed up hair goofy hats and needing a shave. The look of our new smart ones looks a lot different than what NASA looked like in the 60’s. Who gives a shit what ya look like if you are smart. Look at me ,I’m luck .Being so good looking and real smart .I think this is great .The relanding of the boosters was unbelievable .This my friends is American ingenuity at its best .Even though Musk is an immigrant .
Lighten up geordie!
At least the car is not chevy powered! Or worse, Ford powered
he stole that from heavy metal! will they cut off the feed when some unexplained lights zip by??
Hopefully it doesn’t float through a space ghetto and get stripped.
It’s all wonderful when your spending other peoples money. Musk and Tesla are burning through taxpayer and investor cash at the rate of $8,000/min and will run completely dry of cash in August of 2018 at present sales, production and spending rates. When you are loosing that much money it’s always good to draw peoples attention away with a “look at the shiny object over there” routine. Unless more dumbass investors dump in more millions or the democrooks return to power to do another taxpayer paid for bailout, Musk will soon learn the great equalizer is spelled P-R-O-F-I-T and if you can’t make it you go out of business, no matter how shiny the objects. You can expect Jerry Brown in the bankrupt Peoples Republic of LA and SF to be on TV soon squalling like a little baby for Feds to save those jobs like you did GM. Good luck with that.