Everything we know about Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster travelling through space at 16,000 mph
Love him or hate him, Elon Musk has been part of some pretty wild projects over the years. Having one of his own cars up in space is perhaps one of the most random.
While the Space X founder has lost plenty on Tesla stock in recent months, with Donald Trump's tariffs only leaving more holes in his pocket, he remains the world's richest man and probably doesn't blink twice when a couple of million evaporates from his bank account.
The businessman has taken on more of a political role since Trump's return to the Oval Office. This has hardly done much for the 53-year-old's controversial image, and it seems as though the South African's best work has been beyond Earth's orbit, given the success of various space projects over the years.
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Running a space company and a car business simultaneously, if you've got a mind like Musk, it's likely you'd put two and two together and send a Tesla up to the stars - and that's exactly what he did in 2018.
The Tesla Roadster was ejected into space as a dummy payload for a Falcon Heavy test flight. It's fitted with a mannequin in a space suit called Starman - a tongue-in-cheek nod to the David Bowie classic. The Bowie song Space Oddity was also set up to play on repeat through the vehicle's sound system. The SpaceX team also chucked a Hot Wheels car and a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy inside for good measure.
Musk previously revealed exactly why he sent the Tesla Roadster skyward, saying that he hoped that humanity would end up living on other planets and that his 'descendants will be able to drag it [the car] back to a museum'. The chances of that may seem pretty low, but the more kids Musk has, the more those chances improve.
Musk has also said that he wanted to put the 'silliest' thing he and his SpaceX team could think of out of Earth's orbit, and apparently they settled on a car. Gosh, Elon, your imagination knows no bounds!
Anyway, after seven years in space travelling at speeds well above 10,000 mph, you might think that it's tricky to keep track of the Roadster, but fortunately, like nearly everything these days, there's a website for that.
The ‘Where is Roadster?’ site keeps track of the Tesla as it zooms through space. At the time of writing, it is currently 228,647,460 miles from Earth. However, it's travelling back towards its home planet at the lightning-fast speed of 16,106 mph.
That means that its speed has increased by 5,000 mph in the last week alone. Maybe it's homesick and wants to get back in time for Christmas, learning an important lesson from the NASA astronauts who end up spending far too long away from Earth.
So what happens when the space car does finally come back home?
Well, Musk could land himself in real trouble if the Tesla does crash land back to Earth. As long as it steers clear of any humans or man-made objects and doesn't cause any damage, it seems as if the billionaire will get away with it. Hopefully it avoids the likes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Niagara Falls, too.
James Moorhouse