“A starman is waiting in the sky. He would love to come and meet us, “but he” is 37 million miles away and is busy passing Mars.
It has been almost three years since Elon Musk launched the Falcon Heavy Rocket into space carrying his Tesla Roadster Convertible. After David Bowie’s song in the driver’s seat, there’s a compartment called “Mankin” called “Mank”, wearing a spacesuit prototype designed by Musk’s company, SpaceX.
Eccentric and burning cash for exciting stunts: it’s a musk, with more money than it could cost on earth.
Back at the launch, the car’s stereo played Bowie’s “Mars on Life?” When the dashboard says “Don’t panic”, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Erupted in the doldrums.
But Starman isn’t just a stunt. The craft will orbit the sun for billions of years, which is about 13.5 miles per hour. So it will cross the orbits of Mars and Earth several times, and come in .05 astronomical units or below 5 million miles from the surface of the Red Planet this week.
NASA and Musk have made significant progress toward their personal goal of gathering more information on Mars and ultimately colonizing it.
Making millions of miles away doesn’t mean we’re close to becoming human there, but counting rebellions like this is a great sign that we’re on our way.
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