The founder and CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, announced that the company's new launcher, the Falcon Heavy, will be launched for the first time next month, and that he will launch his personal Tesla Roadster to Mars, which will play David Bowie's famous song Space Oddity along the way.
Crazy idea or advertising trick? Elon Musk announced that his space launch company, SpaceX, will launch an electric sports car made by another company he owns - Tesla - to Mars. If that's not enough, the car will be Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster. According to Musk, the car will be launched on the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy launcher, scheduled for January 2018, and if successful, will become the most powerful active launcher in the world.
Musk tweeted yesterday on his Twitter page that "the heavy Falcon will be launched next month followed by the launch of Apollo 11 at Cape [Canaveral]. It will have twice the thrust of the next most powerful launcher. It is guaranteed to be exciting, one way or another."
Falcon Heavy to launch next month from Apollo 11 pad at the Cape. Will have double thrust of next largest rocket. Guaranteed to be exciting, one way or another.
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2017
In another tweet, Musk wrote: "The cargo will be my Tesla Roadster Midnight Cherry, which will play the S. The destination is Mars orbit. It will be in deep space for about a billion years if it doesn't explode on takeoff." You can see a picture of Musk's car In this link.
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
This is not a joke - Elon Musk and another source at SpaceX Confirmed to the Ars Technica website Because this is a serious plan, and to the question of one of his followers on Twitter, Musk Confirmed Because this is the first model of the Tesla Roadster (from 2008), and not the new model of the sports car, on She announced company last month. It is worth noting, however, a rather strange incident, because The Verge website Reporting First, because Musk confirmed to them that the program was real, but later told the website that he "completely made it up", although, as mentioned, Musk later told the website Ars Technica that it was not a joke. The Verge website itself changed its report again, and said from "a person who happens to be condensed" that the plan to launch a Tesla car is real. Phil Platt of Syfy also contacted Musk, who approved him Because the show is real.
Musk did not specify in his tweets on Twitter what the orbit to which his personal car will be launched would look, and it was not clear what he meant by the term "Mars orbit". Phil Platt of Syfy contacted Musk, Reporting Because it is not an orbit around Mars, but that the car will be launched only near Mars - to an elliptical orbit around the Sun, at the point closest to the Sun will bring the car into the orbit of the Earth, and its farthest point will reach the orbit of Mars (in order for the car to enter orbit around Mars, it It will have to be launched together with a rocket engine and all the other fuel and equipment accompanying it, which will allow it to slow down and enter orbit).
This is not the first time that SpaceX has launched a "useless" payload - in the first launch of the Dragon spacecraft in 2010, the spacecraft carried A wheel of cheese, which according to Elon Musk was a tribute for the sketch In the series "Monty Python's Flying Circus", in which John Cleese tries to order, without success, cheese at a cheese shop.
Musk indicated in his words that the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy will take place in January 2018, but the announced launch goals of SpaceX should be questioned, especially in light of the fact that the Falcon Heavy was originally supposed to be launched in 2013 and its launch has since been repeatedly postponed.
As Musk emphasized in his second tweet above, and not for the first time, the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy has a significant chance of ending in failure. Musk said before that he will consider the flight a success if the launcher manages to take off high enough above the launch pad, so that it will not be damaged if it explodes (and Musk, like many Israelis, well remembers The explosion of the Falcon 9 that happened last year, which caused the destruction of the Israeli satellite Amos 6, as well as very heavy damage, therefore SpaceX's second launch at Cape Canaveral, which the company only Just finished renovating).
The basic idea behind the company's new launcher is Falcon 9 with two additional first stages, which are connected to the central first stage as side boosters. Similar to the multipurpose first stage of the Falcon 9, all three first stages of the heavy Falcon will be able to land after launch (in fact, two side boosters on the maiden flight have already flown before). One of the factors that increases the chance of any failure in the new launcher is the fact that instead of 9 engines that are activated together in a normal Falcon 9 launch, 27 engines will be ignited in a Falcon Heavy launch.
Watch: Animation of a Falcon Heavy launch
Musk previously noted Because at first he thought that the development of the launcher would be a simple task, "just stick two first stages as side boosters", according to him. However, the task turned out to be more complicated, and the company had to redesign the chassis of the middle stage of the launcher, due to the heavy load exerted on it by two side boosters.
If its maiden flight is successful, the Falcon Heavy will become the most powerful active launcher in the world, a title the launcher currently holds Delta 4 is heavy of ULA, a competitor of SpaceX, which is jointly owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. According to SpaceX, the heavy Falcon will be able to launch 63.8 tons to low Earth orbit, and 16.8 tons to Mars (a Tesla Roadster car weighs only about 1,250 kg, so there is no limit in this respect for launching to Mars).
SpaceX intends to use the new heavy launcher to launch heavier commercial and government satellites, which are not suitable for its usual Falcon 9 launcher. The company also intends to use the heavy launcher for Launching two private space tourists in her Dragon spacecraft to fly around the moon, a mission that, as of today, is planned for the end of 2018. In the past, the company wanted to use the launcher also for landing a Dragon spacecraft on Mars, but the plan put away few months ago.
See more on the subject on the science website:
- Elon Musk reveals the way he will pay for his giant Mars rover
- A SpaceX rocket engine exploded during a test for a new version of the Falcon 9
- SpaceX launched a used Falcon 9 launcher for the third time - and landed it on a rig in the middle of the sea
- SpaceX plans to launch two space tourists next year for a flight around the moon
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I can think of more stupid things to send into space, but not many.
The most expensive advertising campaign in history.
He strives to make it difficult to differentiate between marketing and a real product.
Elon Musk is a man with a vision. He is one of the few who cares that artificial intelligence, for example, should be friendly to humans.
Asimov's Robot Rules from the 1965 Mossad series are in a sense already here. There are no androids yet, but there are robot laws. The problem is that not everyone is Elon Musk. Not everyone will make positive use of technology.