A car in SPAAAACE!

[Nightshade]

You heard that right:



Elon Musk's latest exploit.

[Isaac]

"Try to catch fire now, batteries!"

[Flatlander]

That was a great launch. After we watched the liftoff online, most of the people in my office went outside to watch the rest of it. Once it gets high enough, you can see most launches from here in Orlando. Then we went back inside to watch the booster landings, really cool. They said there might be sonic booms from the boosters returning, but we didn't hear any.

[Tunnelcat]

That was the coolest space launch I've ever seen, and I've watched the Saturn V take off during the Apollo missions. As for the car in space, it's apparently going to be boosted out of our orbit and will be headed towards Mars. I wonder if they're going to try for orbit once they reach Mars? Either way, it'll be interesting to see what sitting in space for years does to a car, if we ever see it again.

[Top Gun]

No, the upper stage's orbit is only crossing Mars's orbital path. It won't have any direct interaction with Mars, and even if it did, that booster didn't carry nearly enough fuel for an orbital insertion.

Still, though, I think this is final proof that fiction has nothing on reality. If you tried to write this ★■◆●, people would call you a hack.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

they should've put the stig in the boot (from top gear if you didnt know.)

[Sirius]

You mean the guy at the wheel isn't him?

[TigerRaptor]

[Tunnelcat]

No, the upper stage's orbit is only crossing Mars's orbital path. It won't have any direct interaction with Mars, and even if it did, that booster didn't carry nearly enough fuel for an orbital insertion.

Still, though, I think this is final proof that fiction has nothing on reality. If you tried to write this ★■◆●, people would call you a hack.

So I wonder where it'll be heading once it passes by Mars? Just in a general direction to who knows where, or did he have some specific trajectory in mind, like towards Andromeda?

[Krom]

Pretty sure it was just going to settle around in an elliptical orbit around the sun, because it would take a fair chunk more velocity (from gravity assists) to actually leave the system.

[Tunnelcat]

Ohhhhh. So now it's a Sol System carsteroid.

[Tunnelcat]

Annnnnd, it's got an orbit that will bring it back towards Earth every 30 years or so. By 2091, it will be as close to us as the Moon is to the Earth during that pass. Unless of course, it crashes into Venus or the Sun first.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/elon-musk-te ... 27724.html

[Nightshade]

Annnnnd, it's got an orbit that will bring it back towards Earth every 30 years or so. By 2091, it will be as close to us as the Moon is to the Earth during that pass. Unless of course, it crashes into Venus or the Sun first.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/elon-musk-te ... 27724.html

It seems there was a "hidden" or "secret" payload along with the car:

SpaceX Hid a Second, Secret Payload Aboard Falcon Heavy, And It Sounds Amazing

Designed to last for millions of years.
PETER DOCKRILL
12 FEB 2018

Elon Musk's personal Tesla might have gotten all the headlines during SpaceX's historic rocket launch last week, but the Falcon Heavy also carried a second, secret payload almost nobody knew about.

Stashed inside the midnight-cherry Roadster was a mysterious, small object designed to last for millions (perhaps billions) of years – even in extreme environments like space, or on the distant surfaces of far-flung planetary bodies.

Called an Arch (pronounced 'Ark'), this tiny storage device is built for long-term data archiving, holding libraries of information encoded on a small disc of quartz crystal, not much larger than a coin.

According to Arch Mission Foundation, the California-based nonprofit behind the technology, these Archs could "preserve and disseminate humanity's knowledge across time and space, for the benefit of future generations".

The Arch looks like a shrunk-down DVD or Blu-ray, but its potential for data storage goes way beyond any optical discs you have in your home.

The technology, developed by physicist Peter Kazansky from the University of Southampton in the UK, can theoretically hold up to 360 terabytes of data, about the same amount as 7,000 Blu-Ray discs.

https://www.sciencealert.com/spacex-lau ... tesla-arch

[Tunnelcat]

That puts that Golden Record sitting aboard Voyager to shame, at least with data capacities.

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/

[Tunnelcat]

Now you can track the whereabouts of the Tesla and Starman from the comfort of the internet. I like the comment that the car has exceeded it's 36,000 mile warranty over 720.4 times since it was launched.

http://www.whereisroadster.com/index.html

[Krom]

If it qualified, just imagine how many world records this car would now own.

Probably doesn't qualify because its not on the world anymore, and didn't leave under its own power either.