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By Scott Longman
Gearheads have for decades been debating one another to the point of hypoxia over what the fastest car is. Well, that debate is now conclusively over, and not just until the next model year or tech innovation. No, the debate is over for all of time, because the unbeatable speed record was set in 2018. Crazily enough, by a 2010 Tesla Roadster.
SpaceX had developed a rocket, termed a Falcon Heavy. Its purpose is moving big payloads to orbit and beyond. So, in live testing, they needed a payload. They approached NASA, offering a free launch—which would have been worth about $90 million—but NASA didn’t take them up on it. Then, they approached the Air Force. Neither did they.
But the one thing Elon Musk is never short of is ideas. Unsurprisingly, he drives Teslas, and he’d been using a 2010 Roadster as his daily driver. In a hilarious bit of cross-marketing, he came up with the idea of using the car as the payload.
But, being Elon, he couldn’t be content with just launching the car.
First, he added a dummy driver, fully decked out in a real SpaceX spacesuit, and he set him up for cruising the cosmos with the top down, his right hand on the wheel, and the left elbow catching some (solar) wind hanging out the left side. Then, Elon christened the astronaut “Starman,” drawing from the David Bowie song of the same name. And no roadtrip would be complete without tunes, so he set the sound system on loop playing Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” better known as “Major Tom.”
He also paid homage to the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series by putting the first book of the “trilogy of four” in the glovebox, and placing a sign on the dash reading “DON’T PANIC,” which was a recurring joke in the series.
And why bother having the car just stop in Earth orbit? Elon was looking for publicity bang, so instead of going local, he went regional: The Tesla was launched to orbit the Sun.
As to longevity, the good news is that there is no oxidation or acid rain in deep space. But as anybody who lives in Scottsdale can tell you, solar UV radiation is brutal. And in addition, cosmic radiation, micrometeorites and solar wind will all do some space sandblasting. How long the Starman setup remains reasonably intact is up for speculation. But supposing it lasts a really long time, Elon included the message “Made on Earth by Humans” on a circuit board in the car, along with a list of those who had worked on the project, and a copy of Isaac Azimov’s “Foundation” books, in optical form.
If Elon ever wakes up wondering “Dude, where is my car? (not to be confused with “Dude, Where’s My Boat?”), the answer is that it’s being tracked, and can be found on whereisroadster.com, currently about 168 million miles away. Oh, and as to that speed record? Relative to the Sun, the Tesla varies between about 23,000 and 75,000 miles per hour.
The post Dude, Where’s My Car? appeared first on Field Ethos.
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Gearheads have for decades been debating one another to the point of hypoxia over what the fastest car is. Well, that debate is now conclusively over, and not just until the next model year or tech innovation. No, the debate is over for all of time, because the unbeatable speed record was set in 2018. Crazily enough, by a 2010 Tesla Roadster.
SpaceX had developed a rocket, termed a Falcon Heavy. Its purpose is moving big payloads to orbit and beyond. So, in live testing, they needed a payload. They approached NASA, offering a free launch—which would have been worth about $90 million—but NASA didn’t take them up on it. Then, they approached the Air Force. Neither did they.
But the one thing Elon Musk is never short of is ideas. Unsurprisingly, he drives Teslas, and he’d been using a 2010 Roadster as his daily driver. In a hilarious bit of cross-marketing, he came up with the idea of using the car as the payload.
But, being Elon, he couldn’t be content with just launching the car.
Elon & Tesla’s Starman
First, he added a dummy driver, fully decked out in a real SpaceX spacesuit, and he set him up for cruising the cosmos with the top down, his right hand on the wheel, and the left elbow catching some (solar) wind hanging out the left side. Then, Elon christened the astronaut “Starman,” drawing from the David Bowie song of the same name. And no roadtrip would be complete without tunes, so he set the sound system on loop playing Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” better known as “Major Tom.”
He also paid homage to the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series by putting the first book of the “trilogy of four” in the glovebox, and placing a sign on the dash reading “DON’T PANIC,” which was a recurring joke in the series.
And why bother having the car just stop in Earth orbit? Elon was looking for publicity bang, so instead of going local, he went regional: The Tesla was launched to orbit the Sun.
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SpaceX photo 
SpaceX photo
As to longevity, the good news is that there is no oxidation or acid rain in deep space. But as anybody who lives in Scottsdale can tell you, solar UV radiation is brutal. And in addition, cosmic radiation, micrometeorites and solar wind will all do some space sandblasting. How long the Starman setup remains reasonably intact is up for speculation. But supposing it lasts a really long time, Elon included the message “Made on Earth by Humans” on a circuit board in the car, along with a list of those who had worked on the project, and a copy of Isaac Azimov’s “Foundation” books, in optical form.
If Elon ever wakes up wondering “Dude, where is my car? (not to be confused with “Dude, Where’s My Boat?”), the answer is that it’s being tracked, and can be found on whereisroadster.com, currently about 168 million miles away. Oh, and as to that speed record? Relative to the Sun, the Tesla varies between about 23,000 and 75,000 miles per hour.
The post Dude, Where’s My Car? appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...
