Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster

Photograph of a parking space with the words "SpaceX" and "reserved". The parking space contains a red convertible sports car with Californian license plate TSLA 10. On the rear of the vehicle are written the words "Tesla Roadster Sport".


Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster is an electric sports car that served as the dummy payload for the February 2018 Falcon Heavy test flight and became an artificial satellite of the Sun. "Starman", a mannequin dressed in a spacesuit, occupies the driver's seat. The car and rocket are products of Tesla and SpaceX, respectively, both companies headed by Elon Musk. The 2008-model Roadster is personally owned by and previously used by Musk for commuting to work. It is the first production car launched into space and first to orbit the sun.

The car, mounted on the rocket's second stage, acquired enough velocity to escape Earth's gravity and enter an elliptical heliocentric orbit crossing the orbit of Mars. The orbit reaches a maximum distance from the Sun at aphelion of 1.66 astronomical units (au). During the early portion of the voyage outside the Earth's atmosphere, live video was transmitted back to the mission control center and live-streamed for slightly over four hours.

Advertising analysts noted Musk's sense of brand management and use of new media for his decision to launch a Tesla into space. Musk explained he wanted to inspire the public about the "possibility of something new happening in space" as part of his larger vision for spreading humanity to other planets.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reactions

Image
The choice of the Roadster as a dummy payload was variously interpreted as marketing for Tesla, or a work of art, with some worrying about the risk to contamination of otherwise sterile solar system bodies. Some also commented on how the Roadster was not a space debris risk. Marketing edit Musk was lauded as a visionary marketer and brand manager by controlling both the timing and the content of his corporate public relations. After the launch, Scientific American said using a car was not entirely pointless, in the sense that something of that size and weight was necessary for a meaningful test. "Thematically, it was a perfect fit" to use the Tesla car, and there was no reason not to take the opportunity to remind the auto industry that Musk was challenging the status quo in that arena, as well as in space. Advertising Age agreed with Business Insider that the Roadster space launch was the "greatest ever car commercial without a dime spent on advertising", demons...
Read more

Cultural impact

Image
The car in space quickly became a topic for Internet memes. Western Australia Police distributed a picture of a radar gun aimed at the Roadster whilst above Australia. Škoda produced a parody video of a Škoda Superb being driven to Mars (a village in central France). An attempt was made by Donut Media to launch a Hot Wheels Tesla Model X to the stratosphere using a weather balloon. ToSky, a Siberian start-up, sent a scale model of a Soviet-era Lada carrying a mannequin of Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin to an altitude of 20 km to gather test data for the design of stratostats. Some news reports observed a similarity between the real pictures of a car orbiting the Earth and the title sequence of the 1981 animation film Heavy Metal , where a space traveler lands on Earth in a two-seater Chevrolet Corvette convertible. The SpaceX launch live stream reached over 2.3 million concurrent viewers on YouTube, which made it the second most watched live event on the platform, behind another space-r...
Read more

30) Republic Day 2021: Parade timing security arrangements traffic limitations to Delhi Metro companies - All you need to know

India Republic Day -- Republic Day 2021 Parade Routine Chief Guest Security Preparations: The parade normally sees thousands of people and foreign dignitaries invited to see the parade. Nonetheless the number of guests and attendees has been restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic this time. Republic Day 2021 Parade Timings Main Guest Delhi Metro Expert services: India will celebrate it is 72nd Republic Day on January 26. This day is marked to celebrate the time on which the Constitution associated with India came into being in 1950. On this day the Republic Day parade takes place scaled-down the military might along with the rich cultural heritage on the country. The parade usually sees thousands of people and unusual dignitaries invited to see the attend. However the number of guests and attendees has been restricted due to coronavirus pandemic this time. This season there will be no chief guest or foreign dignitaries on Republic Day. The number of vistors has also been brought...
Read more