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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Musk to launch his favorite car into Mars orbit!
2017-12-02

Regarding the mystery payload for his Falcon Heavy rocket's test flight Elon Musk says:
[Twitter] 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.
Posted by:3dc

#12  Wishing it would placed in a slow air-braking orbit, with inflatable balloon things.
Posted by: Shipman   2017-12-02 17:49  

#11  He didn't understand the engineering and logistical complexity of volume building vehicles.

I doubt he will solve them before going broke.
Posted by: phil_b   2017-12-02 17:38  

#10  
Posted by: 3dc   2017-12-02 16:37  

#9  2008 Roadster as being 3,946 mm long and 1,873 mm wide, and the diagonal of such a rectangle is 4,368 mm, so it should fit a standard F9 fairing which offers 4.6 m ID.
Posted by: 3dc   2017-12-02 15:20  

#8  
Posted by: 3dc   2017-12-02 15:19  

#7  His last demo payload was a wheel of cheese.
A car is much cooler.
End of story.
Posted by: 3dc   2017-12-02 11:51  

#6  He could have built and launched an actual probe to a comet, like the so-called "interstellar asteroid" that flew past the inner system in the past year.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2017-12-02 10:08  

#5  Alternatively, he could take $200 million, make a pile and light it on fire. I'm sure the stockholders are thrilled. They'd be even more thrilled if Tesla could produce more than 10 Model 3 cars a day.
Posted by: Blossom Smiter of the Ostrogoths6922   2017-12-02 07:59  

#4  Rocket tech applied to a car opens up revolutionary possibilities.
Wile E. Coyote was driving Acme models decades ago.
Posted by: Glenmore   2017-12-02 05:55  

#3  Nice. more time capsule space junk, this time over another planet.
Posted by: newc   2017-12-02 00:48  

#2  A post a couple of weeks ago that everybody ignored Post

Not saying the next gen Roadster special upgrade package *will* definitely enable it to fly short hops, but maybe …

Certainly possible. Just a question of safety. Rocket tech applied to a car opens up revolutionary possibilities.
Posted by: 3dc   2017-12-02 00:31  

#1  I love this guy.
Posted by: Skidmark   2017-12-02 00:28  

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