STARMAN BY SPACEX: WHERE IS IT NOW?
Hi, welcome on Insane Curiosity. Today we want to remind that, if you're watching
this video, unless you are less than three years old, you're a special person!
And you are special, because...you were there! Well, let me explain it better.
About three years passed since Space X launched a Tesla in space, and it seems like forever
ago, because meanwhile a bunch of things happened. But the memory we have about that day it's
so vivid that it could've happened yesterday.
6 February 2018, where were you at that time?
Watching Falcon Heavy (the most powerful rocket on Earth) liftoff, it's something that you
don't see every day. It was one of the most iconic moments in space
exploration history. A moment like that, it will never be forgotten.
And you, my dear, conscious or unconscious, you were there!
That's why you are special.
But...what happened to the Tesla Roadster with Starman on board and the “DON'T PANIC”
quote on the dashboard? Has it been found by aliens? Did it crash into an asteroid?
Did it land somewhere?
Follow me on this journey to get to know more about Starman and his Tesla.
Spoiler: you will find also hilarious memes, like this one
The Tesla Roadster was launched in orbit around the Sun, an orbit that even crosses Mars orbit.
But, before telling you what happened to it, let's make a little step back.
In fact, some of you may have missed the launch and may be asking why we launched a Tesla
around the Sun. Everything started with the SpaceX piano of
building the Falcon Heavy launcher, a powerful rocket.
Falcon Heavy is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines
together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately
eighteen 747 aircraft, or, if you want, approximately 26.597 Elon Musk (assuming for the SpaceX
CEO a weight of about 188 pounds). But if you are going to launch a brand new
rocket, you have to be sure that the new launcher it's going to work!
In the end, they opted for launching it loading a Tesla. With a mannequin on board.
It was something spectacular and useful at the same time.
In fact, they just wanted to test the launcher: the Tesla was used as a Dummy payload.
The inaugural flight of the Falcon Heavy was an unloaded scientific test.
Since Elon Musk is at the head of Tesla, he came up to mind to launch his own Tesla, the
one that he used to drive to work. Here it goes the second meme of the day:
But why did hey decide to launch a Tesla in space?
Well, as we already said, the practical reason was to test the new Falcon Heavy launcher,
but there is another and maybe more important reason: they launched it in order to inspire
the public. In fact, SpaceX's distinctive feature has
always been to Dare the Impossibile, making something different, without too much advertising.
We could say: DO, DON'T TELL. That's why everybody on Earth loves Elon Musk
and Space X. Because they work on real problems, finding
real solutions. They launch a car in space for real and let everyone in the world just
stand by and wait to see what happens. If you are super excited to hear about SpaceX
and Elon Musk, well...it's probably because you know that they mean the things they say.
And if they told you that they were gonna launch a Tesla Car in space, you would have
probably believed them, even if it seemed to you just a beautiful tall tale.
Space X is inspiring the public towards something new.
Instead of launching a boring dummy payload, they decided to launch something that inspired
the audience. Believe it or not, a lot of people who didn't
follow space stuff, after watching a Tesla driving into space, they got interested in
aerospace. Maybe many of you were inspired by it too
and started to get closer to aerospace engineering. In fact, although someone said that it was
just a programmed marketing move, we can't deny the huge positive impact the launch had
over our and next generation.
By the way, this is what we saw:
...And this is what flat earthers say they saw:
And as if a car in space was not enough of a spectacle, the Roadster carried with it
a few subtle and not-so-subtle "Easter eggs." Beginning with the Starman itself, the spacesuit
worn by the mannequin was not a costume, but rather marked the first in-space use of a
garment designed for NASA astronauts to wear on SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft crewed flights to
the International Space Station. As the camera views changed from showing the
Roadster from its side and front to a view looking over the Starman's shoulder, another
detail was revealed — on the dash screen was a sign with a science fiction-inspired
message. Prior to the launch in December, Musk was
asked on Twitter if the Roadster would contain a copy of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
by Douglas Adams. "Yes," replied Musk, "plus a towel and a sign
saying 'Don't Panic.'" A more subtle, hidden message was shared by
Musk on Instagram soon after the Roadster had entered space.
"Printed on the circuit board of a car in deep space," wrote Musk, captioning a photo
of the inscription reading, "Made on Earth by humans."
The names of more than 6,000 of those humans — SpaceX employees — were engraved onto
a plaque mounted on the payload attach fitting, the structure that held the Roaster onto the
Falcon Heavy's second stage. And last but not least, a Hot Wheels Tesla
Roadster, complete with a tiny Starman, sits on the dashboard of Elon Musk’s Roadster
after being launched into deep space. "It's kind of silly and fun, but silly and
fun things are important," Elon Musk said. "I think the imagery of it is something that
is going to get people excited around the world."
"Maybe it'll be discovered by some future alien race thinking, 'What the heck were these
guys doing? Did they worship this car?'" quipped Musk. "'Why do they have a little car in the
car?' That will really confuse them.” All of this was launched in orbit around the
Sun.
But where is this vehicle? When this script was written, the location was 36,200,112 miles
(58,258,451 km, 0.389 AU, 3.24 light minutes) from Earth, moving away from Earth at a
speed of 1,180 mi/h . It has achieved a fuel economy of 11,249.9 miles
per gallon (4,782.9 km/liter, 0.02091 liters/100 km), assuming 126,000 gallons of fuel.
If the battery was still working, Starman has listened to Space Oddity 286,544 times
since he launched in one ear, and to Is there Life On Mars? 386,106 times in his other
ear. (yes, Starman was listening to them when the
Falcon Heavy left!) A telescope about 8,550 ft (2,606 m) in
diameter would be required to resolve the Upper stage from Earth. A smaller one could
see him as an unresolved dot, about 16.4 ft (5.0 m) in diameter, in ideal conditions.
The vehicle has traveled far enough to drive all of the world’s roads 62.8 times.
It has been 2 years, 10 months, 20 days, 16 hours, 24 minutes and 11 seconds since
launch.
But could Tesla hit the Earth in the future? It was calculated there are about 6% of chances
for Starman to hit the Earth over the next couple million years, so don't worry too much
about it! For now, it is continuing to orbit around
the Sun, reaching a distance of 0,99 UA in its closest point to the Sun, and a distance
of 1.6 UA at aphelion. A Tesla-Roadster-Year is about one and a half
Earth-year.
But let me ask you a question: what would you expect to happen to a car in space?
"Before finding out the answer to this question, be sure to like or dislike the video so that
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So,carbon-carbon bonds: gone. That it, tires: gone. Paint: gone. Seats:
gone. All of the organic stuff will continue to
erode as time passes by. Only aluminium and glass will probably remain,
but micro impacts will damage the car and the mannequin, leaving micro-holes, as it
had experienced machine gun bullets. It would be nice to see it closer.
In fact, SpaceX said that they could launch a small mission with the aim to reach our
Tesla and see how's it doing. All of the erosion processes last for a long
time, but we don't know exactly how much time. A lot of these materials have never been exposed
to the cosmic void. That's why launching a small mission like that could be pretty interesting.
Here it is an artist concept on what this small mission would see if it reached Starman:
Anyway, The car in space quickly became a topic for Internet
memes. Western Australia Police distributed a picture of a radar gun aimed at the Roadster
whilst above Australia. Škoda produced a parody video of a Škoda
Superb being driven to Mars (a village in central France). An attempt was made by Donut
Media to launch a Hot Wheels Tesla Model X to the stratosphere using a weather balloon.
The SpaceX launch live stream reached over 2.3 million concurrent viewers on YouTube,
which made it the second most-watched live event on the platform, behind another space-related
event: Felix Baumgartner's jump from the stratosphere in 2012.
Now we just have to wait and see what will happen next.
For example, what could Space X launch as a dummy payload for Starship?
Do you have any idea? What could inspire the next generations?
"This video ends here! Thanks for watching everyone! Do you find this content interesting?
What are your memories about the Falcon Heavy Launch? Do you have any question for us? Did
you enjoy this video? Let us know in the comment below!
See you next time on the channel!