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Elon Musk Makes It Official: Falcon Heavy is Taking Tesla Roadster to Mars “A Red Car for the Red Planet.”
What sounded like a prank when SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first floated it earlier this month became real Friday: His car is headed to outer space.
Musk confirmed on his Instagram that the long-awaited first flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket in January 2018 will carry Musk’s own midnight cherry-colored Tesla Roadster as its payload.
Mars is the mission’s destination, though it won’t actually be touching down on the Red Plant. It will instead be going into a billion-year orbit around our planetary neighbor.
Oh, and Musk revealed his car will be looping David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” — a favorite of at least one astronaut — throughout the journey. It’s a fitting anthem to this monumental mission, though presumably he is saving “Life on Mars” for when SpaceX starts building Musk’s planned Martian’s settlement.
Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2017
All of this was tweeted out by Musk on December 1. But the tech mogul is known to have some prolific Twitter fingers, leading observers wondering if this was nothing more than a joke.
After all, the Falcon Heavy’s launch has been pushed back several times, so it would be understandable if SpaceX carried out the mission in as straightforward and low-key a way as possible. But in classic Musk fashion, he has decided to go with the flashier approach.
Any doubts that Musk wouldn’t be rocketing his Roadster into outer space were quelled Friday. He posted pictures on Instagram of his electric car situated between rocket’s payload fairings, which are the blast shields found at the tip of the rocket that are used to protect payloads.
Regardless of what’s inside the Falcon Heavy, a successful launch would break records in the aerospace sector. Its 27 Merlin engines are capable of generating 5.1 million pounds of thrust at full power. This would make it the most powerful currently operational rocket in the world. Musk recently three three Falcon Heavy photos that show its massive size.
SpaceX also plans to be able to recover the rocket cores used for this test launch, allowing them to continue using this rocket for future space missions to the moon and Mars. If all goes to plan, all three boosters will land upright back on Earth, Musk teased on Twitter recently: “Two cores return to base doing synchronized aerobatics. Third lands on droneship.”
Sillocan on December 25th, 2017 at 20:13 UTC »
One of the biggest reasons he is using his personal car is to simulate an actual payload and as a publicity stunt. If he sent anything else, the customer would be very unhappy if it we're to explode or have a failure. Elon himself has said it's going to be an "exciting" mission no matter what happens.
“[Falcon Heavy] requires the simultaneous ignition of 27 orbit class rockets,” Musk said, adding that there’s a “lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy” as a result.
“There’s a real good chance that it does not make it to orbit,” he continued. “I hope it gets far enough away from the launch pad that it does not cause pad damage – I would consider that a win.” He qualified that while “Falcon Heavy’s going to be a great vehicle,” there “just isn’t a lot you can test on the ground.”
intashu on December 25th, 2017 at 19:21 UTC »
I hope he leaves the keys and title on the glove box. First man to mars can keep it. (obviously for humor, as there's no way to land it!)
Edit: apparently you can! https://i.redd.it/refw1hz96u501.jpg
MaritimeRedditor on December 25th, 2017 at 19:01 UTC »
Imagine if you were watching The Martian and Matt Damons character stumbled on an abandoned car and he was able to get in and drive it around.
Think what the critics would say!
Well, consider that plothole filled.