Reactions

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.

Marketingedit

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", demonstrating that Musk is "miles ahead of the rest" in reaching young consumers, where "mere mortals scrabble about spending millions to fight each other over seconds of air time", Musk "just executes his vision." Alex Hern, technology reporter for The Guardian, said the choice to launch a car was a "hybrid of genuine breakthrough and nerd-baiting publicity stunt" without "any real point beyond generating good press pics", which should not detract from the much more important technological milestone represented by the launch of the rocket itself.

Lori Garver, a former NASA deputy director, initially said the choice of payload for the Falcon Heavy maiden flight is a gimmick and a loss of opportunity to further advance science—but later clarified that "I was told by a SpaceX VP (vice president) at the launch that they offered free launches to NASA, Air Force etc. but got no takers."

Musk responded to the critics stating 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.

Work of artedit

The Verge likened the Roadster to a "ready-made" work of art, such as Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece Fountain, created by placing an everyday object in an unusual position, context and orientation.

Alice Gorman, a lecturer in archaeology and space studies at Flinders University in Australia, said that the Roadster's primary purpose is symbolic communication, that "the red sports car symbolises masculinity – power, wealth and speed – but also how fragile masculinity is." Drawing on anthropological theories of symbols, she argues that "The car is also an armour against dying, a talisman that quells a profound fear of mortality." Gorman wrote that "the spacesuit is also about death. ... The Starman was never alive, but now he's haunting space."

Space debris non-riskedit

Orbital debris expert Darren McKnight stated that the car poses no risk because it is far from Earth orbit. He added: "The enthusiasm and interest that Musk generates more than offsets the infinitesimally small 'littering' of the cosmos." Tommy Sanford, director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said that the car and its rocket stage are no more "space junk" than the mundane material usually launched on other test flights. Mass simulators are often deliberately placed in a graveyard orbit or sent on a deep space trajectory, where they are not a hazard.

Bacteriological contaminationedit

The Planetary Society was concerned that launching a non-sterile object to interplanetary space may risk biological contamination of a foreign world. Scientists at Purdue University noted that the vehicle will be sterilized by solar radiation over time and the vehicle is most likely to hit the Earth in the future, though some bacteria might survive on some components of the vehicle which could contaminate Mars in the distant future if it was to hit Mars instead.