Elon Musk does some fairly outlandish things. From nuclear blast-proof truck windows to Plaid Mode on the new Roadster, nothing is really off limits. But Musk’s latest idea has us all asking, “is he really going to send a car into space?”
The first leaked photo surfaced yesterday and was posted by the user ElonMuskRoadster on the SpaceX subreddit. Even though it’s grainy, it clearly shows a red Roadster on a mounting platform.
Several hours after the leak, Musk took to his Instagram account to confirm the image. In the post, he showed the Roadster on its platform in greater detail along with the new Falcon Heavy rocket.
Naturally, the post was met with some skepticism. Early in the month, Musk took to Twitter to announce he was sending his personal car to Mars.
Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2017
Shortly after his tweet, The Verge sent Musk a message asking for more info. Surprisingly he gave a response stating he made the entire story up. While it all was a bit odd, it didn’t seem like Musk was crazy enough to shoot a car into space.
Now with these new pictures, it looks like he really might be that mad.
This will no doubt generate a ton of publicity for both Tesla and SpaceX. However, according to Musk’s Instagram post, there’s more to sending the Roadster into space than some good press:
“Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring.
“Of course, anything boring is terrible, especially companies, so we decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel.”
If all goes according to plan, it looks like Martians might be getting a Tesla sooner than some Model 3 customers.
The Falcon Heavy will launch from Cape Canaveral next month from the same pad used by Apollo 11. If successful, the Falcon Heavy will end up as the world’s most powerful current rocket — only bested by the historic Saturn V.
We hope the launch is successful and that the Roadster ends up being the first production vehicle to venture into the final frontier.
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