Starman Drives a Midnight Cherry Roadster Into Solar Orbit

A mannequin named Starman drives a Roadster around the Sun on a Bowie loop, and I cannot stop thinking about how we let this happen.

This isn’t fiction; it is February 2018, and the Falcon Heavy rocket just hurled a midnight cherry Tesla Roadster into deep space. I am still reeling because this is Musk’s actual commuter car, the vehicle he used to drive to work before he decided the daily traffic jam was too small a challenge and upgraded his routine to interplanetary orbit.

If you ask me, trading rush hour for the Van Allen radiation belts is the ultimate flex, even if the destination is nowhere near home.

Space Oddity on Repeat or Just a Brand Stunt?

In the driver’s seat sits a mannequin dubbed Starman, wearing a full-pressure spacesuit with its right hand resting casually on the steering wheel. The record shows the figure has its left elbow propped on the open window sill, looking so relaxed I want to shake it and ask who booked this ride.

It is not exactly business casual, but honestly, when the glove box holds a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and a towel, and a sign on the dashboard reads DON’T PANIC!, you know this mission was never going to be serious.

Before liftoff, someone cranked the sound system to continuously loop David Bowie’s Space Oddity, set on a loop that outlasted the battery by not very long at all. Marketing analysts pointed out that Musk clearly understood modern brand management and social media reach.

Look, I will give him credit for wanting to spark wonder about fresh possibilities beyond our atmosphere, even if the whole setup started as the silliest payload concept imaginable.

So, Is It Actually Going to Mars?

You might expect this beauty to cruise toward the Red Planet, but the trajectory data tells a different story. The Roadster entered an elliptical heliocentric orbit that reaches a maximum distance of 1.66 astronomical units from the Sun, crossing Mars’ path without ever getting close enough to visit.

The upper stage simply lacks the propellant and maneuvering capability to place the car into orbit around the fourth planet. My bet is Musk knew this from day one; this flight was designed to prove the Falcon Heavy could hurl heavy payloads toward Mars, not to deliver a convertible tourist.

The car carries way more than just music and literary references; underneath the vehicle, employees get their names carved onto a permanent plaque, while the circuit board declares the hardware was manufactured on Earth by human hands.

The car also carries a 5D optical disc containing Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, a data vault donated by the Arch Mission Foundation meant to preserve knowledge for eons.

I am not okay with the thought of this thing hitting a top speed of roughly 121,000 kilometers per hour at its closest pass to the Sun, mostly because I would hate to be the one asked to go and fetch it.

So, Chillers, we need to settle this: is launching a billionaire’s car into the void the ultimate vision for the future, or did we just waste a perfectly good rocket proving how much fun Musk really is?

Source: Wikipedia’s article on “Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster”. The facts are theirs; the words are ours.