Elon Musk Plans to Launch Tesla Sports Car into Space

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently announced the company’s plans to launch a Tesla sports car into space on a rocket launched by Musk’s other company, SpaceX.

Bloomberg reports that Elon Musk plans to launch one of Tesla’s red sports cars into space on a SpaceX rocket. The rocket will also reportedly be playing David Bowie’s song “space oddity” on repeat. Unsurprisingly, the announcement of the fantastical idea came in the form of a tweet from Elon Musk’s personal Twitter account which reads, “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.”

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

Musk has used the event to advertise both of his companies, Tesla and SpaceX. Musk has even created a tagline to advertise the launch event which will see the red Tesla Roadster launched towards Mars, “Red car for a red planet.” Musk has stated that he loves the idea of one of his cars drifting through space and potentially being discovered by aliens sometime in the future,

I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2017

SpaceX has been operating its Falcon 9 rocket for a number of high profile clients such as NASA and the U.S. military for some time now, but the company’s newest rocket, the Falcon Heavy, is expected to be much more powerful than the Falcon 9. The Falcon 9 has nine Merlin engines, but the new Falcon Heavy has 27, giving it an exponential boost in rocket power. The first test of the Falcon Heavy will be a “static fire” meaning that all the engines will be activated at once to ensure they are all in working order.

SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell recently told Aviation Week, “We wanted to fly Heavy this year. We should be able to static fire this year and fly a couple of weeks right after that.” Phil Larson, a former space policy adviser to President Barack Obama who previously worked for SpaceX stated, “Any time you have a new rocket launching, you’re going to learn a lot. Just like the first flight of a new jumbo jet doesn’t go with a full complement of passengers, it makes sense to do a launch where you can learn a lot but the payload isn’t mission critical.”

The launch of the Falcon Heavy containing the Tesla Roadster is apparently legitimate, but Elon Musk contacted The Verge shortly after his tweet saying that he had “made it up.” The Verge stated in an article,

After Musk tweeted the plan, we asked him to confirm that it was real. Musk replied to us first by email, confirming that it was real. Then, after The Verge published a story about the plan, Musk sent us a response in a direct message on Twitter saying he “totally made it up.” We now know that response was false; a person familiar with the matter told The Verge Saturday evening that the payload is in fact real.

As of now, the launch is supposedly going ahead but given Musk’s penchant for tweeting off the cuff, the rocket’s payload may end up changing by the time of the launch.