The most trending event recently is a spaceman siting in a car with earth on his background. You heard it right, it’s the Tesla roadster with a mannequin wearing SpaceX spacesuit with a hand in wheel who is named ‘Starman’ being launched by worlds most powerful rocket yet ’the falcon heavy’ with a 15.2 MN thrust to propel the payload into space, from the Apollo launchpad 39A at Cape Kennedy. Destination initially planned: Mars orbit.
Figure 1https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960915618865274880
The Falcon Heavy is powered by 27 Merlin engines which generates a total of about 5 million pounds of thrust. That’s enough to launch about 60 tonnes. It’s almost double the carrying power by its closest competitor. In fact, Nasa’ s Saturn V rocket which flew its last mission in 1973 was the last active rocket with a greater payload capacity.
So, Musk being the pick of the lot in terms of unique ways to do things, what’s the need for a car in space?
Many wondered what the point of this expensive stunt. Shouldn’t the most powerful rocket of our age have carried a more useful, worthy payload?
The payload could’ve been any up to 60tonnes.We know falcon 9 had failed many times including the most affected one being the first satellite of Facebook founder Zuckerberg’s, internet.org worldwide connectivity one, which exploded due to unexplained accident.
“It’s going to be an exciting success or an exciting failure,” Musk Reported.
So, rather than making the payload a live important payload, Musk decided that the payload for the test flight should be his old cherry-red Tesla roadster, with a space-suited mannequin strapped in the driver’s seat, named ‘Starman’.
Figure 2https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960998900243902466
To keep the Starman accompanied, David Bowie’s hit song Space Oddity will be in loop on the car’s audio system as it is hurled into an elliptical orbit that stretches out to Mars’ orbit around the Sun. But latest reports suggest that the payload has missed the mars orbit and is now father away moving towards the asteroid belt, where it could loop in a random orbit or could even move father way into deep space.
Figure 3https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/961083704230674438
In Simple terms, it just that It’s a mind-blowing image, a car in space, moving at about 11 km per second towards the asteroid belt and so impressive that the video seems somehow unreal, in Musk’s terms its
“You can tell it's real because it looks so fake, honestly”.
It’s the greatest car ad of all time. The thing that makes it stand out is its pure casualness, a feat carried off jauntily and successfully, with the joke of the starman and a dashboard screen displaying ‘DON’T PANIC.’ Even the circuits in the tesla had ‘Made on Earth by humans’ imprinted on them.
Figure 4https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/64t27m/made_on_earth_by_humans_got_to_love_teslas_sense/
Not just that, the level of attraction the event has brought creating a mindset of uniqueness among all, it’s a feat to bring out everyone attention that its time we humans think beyond the borders and towards reaching out to space, using reusable rockets, maybe enabling travel through space which can save sufficient time. Musk claimed that
“If we are successful, it’s game over for other operators of heavy-lift rockets,”.
“It’s like where one aircraft company has reusable aircraft and all the other aircraft companies had aircraft that were single-use, and you’d sort of parachute out at your destination and the plane would crash land somewhere. Crazy at it sounds, that’s how the rocket business works.”
Peoples thoughts such as how the feat was a waste of cost as that could’ve been used to serve in other manner were shut as the thoughts of others around evolved on when they realised how useful the test was and how it revolutionised the space travel. All this were possible only thanks to the driving Starman in space as he gathered attention like no other. Even the flat earthers had their mouth shut against their conspiracy theories thanks to the space man,
The Falcon Heavy’s successful launch propels the dream into a new level. Musk’s Plan includes building a new space station above the moon, carrying new telecom satellites, and shuttling people to deep space destinations.
In the meantime, the Starman will be driving his roadster in its lonely course through space
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