Caveat: Sending a Sportscar into Space

Occasionally, I have the thought that I have arrived in the future. Most of the time, I don't feel this. Inevitably, the future arrives more slowly than I expected when I was younger, but it does sometimes nevertheless put in an appearance.

SpaceX corporation's test of their new Falcon Heavy rocket today is one such example. The real innovation is their recovery of the the booster stages for re-use. The recycling of these rocket parts, instead of just dropping them in the Atlantic, in old-school NASA style, will make space flight much, much cheaper over the long run. And the video of the simultaneous landing of two side booster rockets back at Kennedy is a pure science fiction moment, circa 1950s.

That said, Elon Musk, the visionary leader of SpaceX, is also a megalomaniacal plutocrat and basically a living incarnation of a classic James Bond movie villain. Perhaps this is the kind of person who advances humanity – I don't know. Is that just what it takes?

Musk's new rocket test needed a "dummy payload," so, in finest egotistical form, he launched his own sports car (a Tesla Roadster, manufactured by one of his other companies), with a mannequin in a space suit at the wheel. So now, humanity has launched a space-suited dummy at the wheel of a sports car, out into space, and eventually, past the orbit of Mars. Furthermore, he placed a towel and a copy of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide in the glove box. Can you imagine the aliens finding that?

Maybe Elon Musk will move to Mars. Somebody should move to Mars, right? Why not him?

[daily log: walking, 8km]

 

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