Why Does the Tesla Look So Fake in Space? We Asked a Chemist

Live Science ^ | February 7, 2018 04:10pm ET | Laura Geggel, Senior Writer |

[Professional Engineer]

The space roadster will inspire more kids than the limited reach of $100k of grant money.

I’m an engineer because the Apollo guys. Inspiration.

[sparklite2]

I grew up in Amarillo, and Cadillac Ranch is what passes for culture. LOL

[BenLurkin]

Excellent

[cynwoody]

stays in our solar system but then won't it be like a tiny planet or asteroid in our solar system?

Yes.

Apparently, Elon's roadster is in an elliptical orbit around the sun, with an aphelion of 2.61 AU (earth-sun distances), almost to the orbit of Ceres, the largest of the asteroids, and a perihelion of 0.98 AU, just inside earth's orbit.

There is a vanishingly small but nonzero probability that, on some future orbit, it could come back do damage, either to one of our satellites or to someone on the ground, were it to somehow survive reentry.

[cynwoody]

It was a piece of crass showmanship that even P. T. Barnum would refer to as uncouth.

We need more of PT's type of uncouth.

Even PT could not have imagined 1950s sci-fi space rockets, much less landing real rockets ass-first, in the 1950s fictional manner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvTxQq8Wbe0

The roadster owner's booster recovery solution decisively beats that of NASA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCOyOvOw5c

Ker-plash. Chutes deflate. Where's the Navy? LOL!

[GingisK]

A car in space is stupid. Apollo was not. I am also a child of Apollo, and was transfixed by that program. Young people of today are smart enough to see the “car in space” as a useless stunt.

[MD Expat in PA]

The rocket needed a payload as part of testing. It could just as easily been a blob of concrete.

Exactly, but way cooler than a blob of concrete.