Elon Musk: Falcon Heavy's first payload will be my Tesla Roadster to Mars | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk: Falcon Heavy's first payload will be my Tesla Roadster to Mars

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92 pointsmastax46 comments

It’s perfect if you think about it. They need weight for the launch, but why use expensive equipment when the odds are high it won’t even leave Earth atmosphere. It’s a massive PR stunt, I mean, what other car company has a car just orbiting Mars casually... and yeah, I guess a large orbit around Mars would just keep orbiting for a Billion years haha.

25 years from now: Did we get station five’s orbit around Mars set yet? No sir, we had to move it because Elon’s damn car was orbiting too close to us... dammit Elon

How about use the weight/space as an orbiting time capsule put together by elementary students to help them be interested in space/science/math/engineering/etc?

I still remember those packets of tomato seeds we received in like 6th grade whose past generations where in Earth's oribit for a few years. Like, they're just tomato seeds, but we spent a few classes talking about them, growing tomatoes, etc.

:shrug:

That's way too risky for a brand-new rocket that might not even leave the atmosphere. All those children will be so disappointed if their time capsule blows up on the launch pad. A car, on the hand... they crash all the time anyway. No big deal.

Why?

At this point anything you put in a time capsule is going to be digitally reproduced a million times over anyway.

There's not a massive distance between "my poem is on a usb drive orbiting mars" and "my poem got blown up when the first SpaceX Falcon Heavy accidentally flew into the sun" they're both equally interesting stories to tell at dinner parties, which is their whole utility.

For engineer types like us, you're probably right. For other people, though, it's a lot more romantic and inspiring to have a physical piece of paper orbiting Mars than to have a USB drive blown to smithereens on the coast of Florida.

I mean, I guess we can throw some stuff in the trunk... and the frunk too ;p

And the glove compartment.

An actual Russell’s Teapot (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot) would have been a good addition to the solar system, but this is even better.

They could put a teapot in the trunk. Almost all Martian orbits would place it between the Earth and Mars half the time, thus fulfilling Russel's assertion. Or they could eject the teapot along the way.

Must be china though. I suggest a white porcelain Melitta teapot. ;)

So all these clean-room precautions that you normally see when people work on satellites are what for again?

I thought that was because we don’t want to contaminate space.

It’s so they don’t contaminate the sensitive instruments on the satellite.

If it was about contaminating space they probably wouldn’t leave so much junk there.

Space Junk and bio-contamination are two separate things. Should the car fail to enter orbit and crash onto mars or any other body there's a possibility that it could introduce life where it does not belong.

You are mixing two items:

1. Planetary protection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection): life on Earth might be dangerous for that of another planet, if we land on it. That's why for example the Mars rovers are prohibited from driving near areas where we think there might be/have_been life. And that's why Cassini was sent to burn into Jupiter's atmosphere: so that we would not contaminate any of its moons by mistake.

2. Clean-room precautions for satellites are mostly to prevent leaving anything on them that would freeze and burn depending on Sun exposition.

Maybe I am not reading this right. However, it seems he wants to put a Tesla Roadster in orbit of Mars? If so, that is a terrible idea. Our own planet has so much space junk floating around that it is becoming unmanageable and actually harming future launches. Why ruin the orbit of another planet? I certainly hope this car has some sort of de-orbiting mechanism.

I think the idea is that they have to put something there as a test, before they can send things that really matter?

maybe send something that's easier to sanitize of biological contaminants

Space is big

You might like the manga/anime Planetes which is about a crew who clean up space debris orbiting the Earth.

Fully charged and ready to drive upon arrival? :)

Given the lack of a powered descent mechanism I'm thinking it'll be more of a crater surrounded by bits of aluminum, plastic, and lithium.

Personally I think it would be funnier to put a Tesla into an eccentric comet-like solar orbit. That way future generations could train their telescopes upon the return of the... car.

So much, this.

I've also been imaging a Star Trek episode where the Enterprise encounters and picks up a Tesla from deep space. :D

I'm picturing Worf driving a Roadster around the cargo bay while Geordi and Miles wax poetic about ancient earth historical vehicles and how they use batteries.

Voyager found a Ford truck in space once. [http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_37%27s_(episode)]

Imagine that the Tesla's autopilot returns home after it retrieves the Voyager probe.

Unlikely to even arrive on mars, typically we need to make course adjustments en route and a car doesn't exactly have thrusters. Hence the comment in the tweet about being in deep space for a billion years or so.

He said the destination is “mars orbit”. So if it gets there, it should be hanging out waiting for humanity to get there.

I wonder how long the battery pack on the tesla will run the radio.

Somewhere between a few days and a few weeks. Vampire drain on Tesla's vehicles is already pretty bad (up to several percent a day) without tossing 'em into space where the battery heater has to run all the time.

But! The underbelly of the car would be a solar panel =p Crank the radio up to 11! (Which is funny because Tesla’s volume actually goes to 11)

So actually, they'd for sure have to disable the heater on the battery, and I dunno, can the battery operate enough power to power the stereo when it's negative crazy low temp in space?

If they're planning on Mars orbit, and not a Mars flyby there's a propulsion system.

edit: Unless by Mars orbit, he means, a solar orbit similar to the orbit of Mars. Which actually probably is what he means. It's just the right blend of technically correct, but slightly misleading.

At least it makes a tiny bit more sense than sending a car with an internal combustion engine to a planet with no oxygen in its atmosphere. It sends a very clear message: you're not gonna be driving that gas-guzzling SUV on Mars. Electric is the future.

The next mission might actually carry a Tesla rover to the surface. Then maybe a large battery-backed solar array so the rover doesn't need to worry about its energy budget anymore. The "silly" mission could even help Tesla/SpaceX gain important insights about how their batteries fare in space. Never underestimate Elon Musk, even when he seems to be having too much fun.

Even if it gets to Mars there's no way to put it into orbit. It'll either hit the planet or go shooting past.

I guess in theory you could use aerocapture to avoid leaving if you aimed it just right, but without thrusters that would eventually mean hitting the planet.

This is wonderful. They'll need a crash test dummy named Tom in the driver's seat of course.

Anyone know what would be the oppprtubity cost they're foregoing of just putting fuel, oxygen up there? Would it be expensive to retrieve it in orbit?

You really, really don't want to put fuel and oxidizer where they don't belong.

If you run fuel lines to the cargo compartment and something goes wrong with the mission halfway to Mars, it would be much more difficult to figure out whether the incident was caused by a fault in the rocket's design or by the one-off modifications.

I may be reading this wrong, but I thought he meant as spare resources for once we do get to Mars, not as extra fuel for the rocket itself.

That is exactly what I meant

One day someone be driving a tesla on mars playing Space Oddity

He said it would be the silliest thing ever. That's silly.

Tacky

Musk is becoming unhinged. If Tesla is to survive, he needs to resign (or be removed) from the Tesla CEO role. That would free him up to focus exclusively on SpaceX.

And you are basing this on what exactly? Please elaborate.

When Tesla decided to proceed with the Model 3 project, the most sensible course of action would have been to partner with a large auto maker who knew how to build and service a mass-market automobile. The obvious choice would have been Toyota, a company that had wasted years on fuel cell technology and needed to pivot quickly towards electric vehicles. Toyota had the manufacturing expertise and Tesla had the technology. Together they could have rocked the market. Instead, Musk insulted and mocked Toyota management, making a collaboration unlikely. That was a serious mistake.

Tesla never had any plans to be only a "car tech" company. If Musk was "sensible" he wouldn't even have started the company in the first place.

And he definitely wouldn’t have started a rocket company.

Tesla and Toyota already had a collaboration that was destroyed by Tesla refusing to remove "one pedal driving" from the drivetrain of the Tesla-powered Rav4. Also, Toyota has been pushing fuel cells over batteries for a long time.

So no, it doesn't look like Tesla passed up your obvious choice.

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