The boss of SpaceX, Elon Musk, wants to send his Tesla convertible in the space

Photo courtesy SpaceX

AFP

Wednesday, 6 December 2017 19:49

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Wednesday, 6 December 2017 19:49

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Elon Musk, founder and boss of SpaceX, wants to send his Tesla red convertible in deep space to Mars to the edge of his new fuse of large capacity, “Falcon Heavy”, whose first flight is expected at the earliest in January next year.

Many have wondered if the billionaire visionary was serious when he mentioned this project last Friday in a tweet saying that the first charge on board of the Falcon Heavy would be “his convertible cherry red playing Space Oddity”, in reference to the tube of David Bowie, the british singer who died in 2016.

“The destination is the orbit of Mars. The car will remain in deep space for a billion years if it does not explode during the launch,” he added.

This information, first of all, disproved by Elon Musk himself, who has said, joking, was confirmed on Wednesday to AFP.

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“I can confirm on condition of anonymity that the convertible (aboard Falcon Heavy ed,) it is true,” said a manager of SpaceX to the AFP.

The astronomer Phil Plait, who has been able to directly interrogate Elon Musk, has indicated on his blog that it did in fact launch its Tesla convertible on an elliptical orbit that would travel at close to the same distance between Earth and Sun and as far away as March.

Falcon Heavy, a qualified “most powerful rocket in the world”, is intended to propel in space crews, astronauts and equipment to destinations beyond earth orbit, like the Moon and Mars.

With a capacity of 54 tons, it can put into orbit loads twice as heavy as the launcher to the Delta IV Heavy, the american company United Launch Alliance, which is currently the most powerful in service.

Saturn V, the rocket used for the Apollo missions to the Moon, could launch 118 tons on low orbit.

The first flight of Falcon Heavy has been pushed back on several occasions. SpaceX hopes to hoist the Falcon Heavy on the shooting range historic pad 39A, at the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral in Florida, by the end of December to complete a test ignition of its 27 engines in preparation for a launch in January.