APOD: Car Orbiting Earth (2018 Feb 13)

[APOD Robot]

Car Orbiting Earth

Explanation: Last week, a car orbited the Earth. The car, created by humans and robots on the Earth, was launched by the SpaceX Company to demonstrate the ability of its Falcon Heavy Rocket to place spacecraft out in the Solar System. Purposely fashioned to be whimsical, the iconic car was thought a better demonstration object than concrete blocks. A mannequin clad in a spacesuit -- dubbed the Starman -- sits in the driver's seat. The featured image is a frame from a video taken by one of three cameras mounted on the car. These cameras, connected to the car's battery, are now out of power. The car, attached to a second stage booster, soon left Earth orbit and will orbit the Sun between Earth and the asteroid belt indefinitely -- perhaps until billions of years from now when our Sun expands into a Red Giant. If ever recovered, what's left of the car may become a unique window into technologies developed on Earth in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

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[scr33d]

Please, no more SpaceX stunts on APOD. Musk's SpaceX is business, not science, orientated. Keep this site's postings to its name sake, astronomy.

[Remo Fernández Carro]

Yes, this is advertising (and space littering).

[JohnD]

Another thinking, enough of the Muskovite faction!

If we must, the simultaneous landing for reuse of the Heavy Falcon boosters was the real story here, even if the main one crashed. They have to be the first real space ships, not just throwaway cans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pY5j9HM4IU

john

[Indigo_Sunrise]

Keep these Falcon Heavy Roadster Images coming - they are fascinating! And the links are extremely informative - thank you APOD mgrs

[Whiskybreath]

What a waste.

[smitty]

While hating to rain on Elon Musk's parade, I have to say that one thing this Falcon Heavy "demonstration launch" truly demonstrates is just how out of touch billionaires such as Musk are with the real world in which they live. Rather than sending his car into space, Musk could have sold it (for well over $100,000), donated the money to a tutoring program for disadvantaged kids in some inner city, and instead sent an equal weight of some inexpensive payload such as concrete into space. The gulf between the top 1 % and the rest of us apparently is just too wide for the Elon Musks of the world to bridge (or apparently even to see). Sad.

[tetrodehead]

Thanks Elon and APOD for this iconic view of our modern world.
With all i'ts problems, it's all we've got so enjoy it while we can.
Dave

[neufer]

While hating to rain on Elon Musk's parade, I have to say that one thing this Falcon Heavy "demonstration launch" truly demonstrates is just how out of touch billionaires such as Musk are with the real world in which they live. Rather than sending his car into space, Musk could have sold it (for well over $100,000), donated the money to a tutoring program for disadvantaged kids in some inner city, and instead sent an equal weight of some inexpensive payload such as concrete into space. The gulf between the top 1 % and the rest of us apparently is just too wide for the Elon Musks of the world to bridge (or apparently even to see). Sad.

Elon Musk is going to save us all billions & billions of dollars in launch costs.

The $100,000 you refer to is a tiny fraction (and the best spent fraction) of Tesla's yearly $52 million marketing budget.

If there is any waste in the space program it comes from sending real humans (especially tourists) into space not dummies.

But, at least, in the future when the top 1 % visits space they will be spending their money in the U.S. rather than Russia.

[JohnD]

Make Space American (again)?

The US is a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, 1967, the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies" See: https://www.state.gov/t/isn/5181.htm
Principally concerned that there should be no militarisation in space, the treaty also states that "The exploration of outer space shall be done to benefit all countries and that space shall be free for exploration and use by all the States."

It would be a pity if the exemplary and inspiring use of Space by the US so far were to allow overcommercialisation to rule out there.

John

[SirTC]

Battery is dead! Had to find a charging station out there.

[stevewiggins]

It may or may not continue to orbit indefinitely. We don't know the physics behind time - we only exist in the tiniest fraction of it. What we call the present lasts less than one Planck second. How then do you define indefinite?

[bystander]

If we must, the simultaneous landing for reuse of the Heavy Falcon boosters was the real story here, even if the main one crashed. They have to be the first real space ships, not just throwaway cans.

I agree. While the Tesla was a fun and whimsical payload, I thought the side-by-side landings of the side boosters was much more newsworthy and deserving of an APOD. That was awesome.

[neufer]

It would be a pity if the exemplary and inspiring use of Space by the US so far were to allow overcommercialisation to rule out there.

• I don't even know what that means .

The current Olympics is taking place because both countries & companies see it in their national & fiscal interests.

Space if full of artificial objects because both countries & companies see it in their national & fiscal interests.

Volunteer British & American Planetary Societies are free to participate in space but their efforts will always be minuscule.

[queryman]

Where are the background stars in these images?

[Tszabeau]

The question left hanging is... is Starman wearing pants?

[SteveD088]

That is the phoniest looking photo ever, but it's 100% genuine!

[Chris Peterson]

Where are the background stars in these images?

The same place they are in any daytime image. Underexposed to the point of invisibility. (Want to test that? Go outside at noon with a manual camera and take a well exposed image.The lighting for the car here is the same as at noon- sitting in full sunlight. Don't change the camera settings, but go out after dark and take another picture. See any stars in the image?)

[MarkBour]

I love following Elon and his exploits. I think he is an inspiration and has good motives. If this forum is expressing a crude voting process as to whether or not something like this is a good APOD, I am all for it. It was a very well-planned and beautifully executed example of astrophotography, and quite expensive and fortunate, to boot!

To the posters that think Elon should have donated his roadster to the poor, or that he is out of touch with the needs of humanity, or that our American billionaires are out of touch with the needs of the less fortunate, I think you have a lot of homework to do. Read up on the pledge, which Elon and many others have signed: http://www.kwiq.com/14-billionaires-sig ... ng-pledge/ That is just a starting point. Read up on the Gates Foundation. Read about what Elon Musk is doing and why. The suggestion that he should have donated his car to the poor is reminiscent of Judas criticizing Mary in John 12:5 .

One thing I'm concerned about with the rocket booster landings. They are fascinating to watch, a great technical achievement in aerodynamic control. But, as the core booster proved, they are somewhat dangerous. According to Mr. Musk, the video for the core booster is unavailable because it hit the water at around 300 mph and wiped out parts on the drone ship it was to land on (video may be recovered later). I'm really glad it was a drone ship and nobody was on board. I'm even more glad it wasn't one of the other boosters that had a problem coming into the landing areas on land. Currently, I would vote for only doing these onto drone ships that are on the water. (I also wonder why they can't be brought back more as gliders, rather than precision-guided spears, but that idea may not prove ultimately safer or more feasible.)

[Chris Peterson]

It may or may not continue to orbit indefinitely. We don't know the physics behind time - we only exist in the tiniest fraction of it. What we call the present lasts less than one Planck second. How then do you define indefinite?

Your point seems to entirely support the use of the word "indefinite" (which is not synonymous with "forever").

[ta152h0]

Lots of battery power ! Case of good beer in the trunk ?

[Bellerophon]

I'd identify the view of Earth behind the roadster as the east coast of Australia, about an hour after launch, so it's morning there. What looks like a narrow peninsula jutting out from the coast I believe to be Fraser Island, about 80 km north of Brisbane. Am I right or wrong?

[neufer]

I'd identify the view of Earth behind the roadster as the east coast of Australia, about an hour after launch, so it's morning there. What looks like a narrow peninsula jutting out from the coast I believe to be Fraser Island, about 80 km north of Brisbane.

---

<<Fraser Island is named after Eliza Anne Fraser was the wife of Captain James Fraser, master of the Stirling Castle. There were 18 people aboard the ship and a cargo mainly of spirits, which may have been involved in the shipwreck at an island off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 22 May 1836. They struck a reef hundreds of kilometres north of K'gari. They then launched a longboat and a pinnace, the latter of which landed on the northern side of Waddy Point on K'gari. The 11 survivors split up into two groups, Eliza and her husband in the second group, and attempted to trek south, surviving on pandanus and berries until they reached Hook Point. Eliza later claimed she was captured by the Badtjala (Butchella) people. Many other survivors of the same ship wreck later disputed Eliza's claims of capture and ill treatment. Other white people had previously been taken in by the Badtjala people and had been treated extremely well. Eliza Fraser's claim eventually led to the massacre and dispossession of the island's tribe. Eliza later secretly married another sea captain (Captain Alexander Greene) in Sydney and they both returned to England aboard his ship, the Mediterranean Packet. Controversy followed when she appeared before the Lord Mayor of London to request that a charity appeal be set up for her three children as she was left penniless after her husband had died, not mentioning her marriage to Captain Greene or the £400 received in Sydney by a fund set up to help her.>>

[rwlott]

While hating to rain on Elon Musk's parade, I have to say that one thing this Falcon Heavy "demonstration launch" truly demonstrates is just how out of touch billionaires such as Musk are with the real world in which they live. Rather than sending his car into space, Musk could have sold it (for well over $100,000), donated the money to a tutoring program for disadvantaged kids in some inner city, and instead sent an equal weight of some inexpensive payload such as concrete into space. The gulf between the top 1 % and the rest of us apparently is just too wide for the Elon Musks of the world to bridge (or apparently even to see). Sad.

Elon Musk is going to save us all billions & billions of dollars in launch costs.

The $100,000 you refer to is a tiny fraction (and the best spent fraction) of Tesla's yearly $52 million marketing budget.

Art makes a good point in referring to Tesla's marketing budget. Let's not forget that SpaceX is a private company serving commercial interests, and also with a marketing budget. Sending this $100,000 car into space is a far sight cheaper than the $5 million cost of a 30-second spot on this year's super bowl, and undoubtedly with way more bang for the buck. I don't hear anyone crying out to those companies buying air time on commercial TV, arguing that they should be donating their advertising budgets to inner city tutoring programs and other worthy causes.

[atehrani]

The whole idea of space travel is depressing. Why should we add so much pollution to the atmosphere to send a few rich people to space. If it has a benefit to whole humanity, OK, but for high-class entertainment, not OK!

And, this idea of sending a Tesla car to space, is not only contaminating space with yet another useless object, is contaminating science with business. It is disappointing that NASA has become a branch of a business with crazy ideas.

All and all, I didn't enjoy seeing the roadster on APOD page.