The man with his finger in many pies, Elon Musk asked ‘where is’ his Tesla Roadster after it launched into space back in 2018.
And users joked back to his post on X that it’s ‘easy to forget there’s a Tesla cruising through space’ while they said it’s ‘probably still looking for a charging station’.
But luckily for Musk (and anyone else wanting to keep tabs), the ‘where is roadster?’ site keeps track of the car, and it’s currently going at just over 11,000 mph.
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The tech boss’ personal Tesla Roadster was sent off to space as part of his SpaceX project to act as the dummy payload for a Falcon Heavy test flight. Well, also as a bit of a practical joke as he wanted the rocket to carry the ‘silliest’ thing he could think of.
A mannequin named ‘Starman’ sits in the driver’s seat, dressed in an astronaut suit similar to what a real one might wear for a spacewalk or during lift off into space.
Now, over seven years since it was sent out into space, the vehicle’s current location (at the time of writing) is roughly 231,182,900 miles away from Earth, moving towards Mars at about 11,371 mph.
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It’s also apparently completed about 4.6926 orbits around the Sun.
Not actually driving, the site says the Tesla Roadster has not exceeded its 36,000-mile warranty and has achieved a ‘fuel economy of 0.0 miles per gallon’.
Paying homage to who he gets his nickname from, if the battery was still working, Starman would have listened to David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ over 710,150 times in one ear since launching into space. In the other ear, he’d have listened to ‘Life on Mars?’ 956,000 times.
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And the stereo itself has been playing the audiobook of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy a total of 10,723 times - there’s a physical copy of that kept inside the glovebox in case someone happens to appear and fancy a read.
Oh, and to keep Starman company, he’s got a Hot Wheels miniature figurine on the dashboard.
Before Musk had ever bought X, he took to the platform to ask people for their suggestions as to what should be going up into space in the rocket.
And that’s where his 2010 Tesla Roadster came in. Musk personally drove the thing to and from work at the headquarters in Austin, Texas, only to end up blasting it into space in 2018.
Jess Battison