In 2018, SpaceX and Elon Musk caused a sensation by boarding the Falcon Heavy rocket, a Tesla Roadster. Direction space for the car manufacturer’s sports car, with Starman on board, a model determined to return to Earth one day.
If the launch of the Roadster into space put little stars in the eyes of many Tesla owners, we also heard discordant voices deploring the uselessness of the initiative. After all, the vehicle does not fulfill any scientific function, it is ultimately only one more waste which sails in the interstellar infinity…
To Mars and beyond
Despite everything, the galactic epic of Starman, the model at the wheel of the Space Roadster, continues to fascinate the crowds! The website Where is Roadster? offers to keep abreast of the position of the vehicle and the distance travelled. Currently, the fireball is approaching Mars, 192 million kilometers from the red planet, and 377 million kilometers (or almost 21 light minutes) from Earth.
The concentric “road” followed by the car means that it has already crossed Mars’ orbit, for example in November 2018. Its speed is 3,430 km/h, more than enough to grill the radars (there is none). a not in space, not yet at least). In just over four years, the Roadster has saved the equivalent of 477,000 liters of gasoline, or an economy of 6,736 km/litre.
If the batteries are still working, Starman will have listened Space Oddity 402,119 times, or 541,839 times Is There Life on Mars?. Even if we love these songs, it must get boring after a while… Since his space launch, the pilot has completed 2.6 orbits around the sun. In other words, the car has driven 50 times all the roads present on Earth!
By following its route, the Roadster could crash on its home planet in… 15 million years, the University of Cornell has calculated!
