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Sticking a car in the payload is funny. But this thing is going further from the earth than all but a few dozen man-made things in history. I have to wonder if
by dguest 9y ago
Sticking a car in the payload is funny.
But this thing is going further from the earth than all but a few dozen man-made things in history. I have to wonder if some scientist has been waiting their entire life for an opportunity like this, and we're blowing it on a Tesla Roadster?
- Zelphyr 9y agoIf it blows up on launch, losing a Roadster is less painful than what that scientist poured years of his/her life into.
- dguest 9y agoThe cost of launching something into low earth orbit is about 50K per pound (before spaceX) so I can imagine an interplanetary trajectory is quite a lot more. At this rate there are probably a lot of science projects that will never be funded, so if I had a less popular proposal I might take those odds.
- nickik 9y agoThe problem is time. They need to launch when they are ready, it would take years for a scientific payload to be designed for this launch. Plus we could not invest so much because the risk. They should just test it and then the scientists can argue for cheaper and larger projects because they have a rocket option now.
- chiph 9y agoMy guess is Musk is launching a Roadster because he's a fan of the movie Heavy Metal https://youtu.be/rYy_XJpI6uk?t=1m45s https://youtu.be/rYy_XJpI6uk?t=1m45s