Featured Image Credit: SpaceX/ Handout
It’s unbelievable to think how far Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster has travelled since it was launched out of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Back in 2018, Musk, 52, elected to send his expensive car shooting off into space as a ‘dummy payload’ for the first mission of Falcon Heavy.
The latter, which successfully launched on February 6 2018, featured the Tesla Roadster on board, with a spacesuit-clad mannequin sitting in the driver’s seat.
Advert
At the time of SpaceX’s rocket launch, Musk admitted that Falcon Heavy only had a 50/50 chance of succeeding.
However, it thankfully went off without any major issues and the Tesla has been floating around in space for the last six years.
But where is the car and the dummy - nicknamed Starman in honour of the late David Bowie - now?
Well, a dedicated website has been set up in the vehicle’s honour where you can track its space process.
The site, whereisroadster.com claims that right now, on 7 June, Musk’s Tesla is over 69,080,000 miles away from Earth and is moving at a speed of 22,075 mi/h (35,526 km/h).
The site also says it has traveled far enough to drive all of the world’s roads 79.8 times and that it has completed around 4.15 orbits around the Sun since its launch.
Interestingly when Starman was shot up into the sky, he was listening to Bowie’s seminal track ‘Space Oddity’ in one ear and ‘Is There Life on Mars?’ in the other.
If the battery was still working, it would mean the mannequin had listened to the former 628,347 times since its launch and its 1973 sequel 846,671 times.
You know he’d definitely be David Bowie’s number one Spotify fan if the experiment was taking place on Earth.
Moreover, the automobile is 223,907,310 miles away from Mars and has staggeringly exceeded its 36,000-mile warranty 88,504.5 times while driving around the Sun.
While the website makes it fun to speculate how far Musk’s car has travelled, it’s entirely possible that it no longer exists.
In reality, it’s entirely possible the electric sports car could have been decimated by a meteoroid or have eroded as a result of radiation.
Or, the Starman, who was decked out in SpaceX’s signature spacesuit could really be living up to his moniker.
As of 2018, there have been no direct observations of the vehicle.
However, there's still time for Musk's decedents descendants to 'drag (the roadster) back to a museum', as he wished following its launch into space.
