"SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk tweeted Friday that his red Tesla Roadster will head for deep space on the maiden flight of the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket as soon as next month, and do it to the tune of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
But it won’t make the trip on battery power.
SpaceX’s Falcon rockets burn hydrocarbons for fuel, consuming a grade of highly refined kerosene called RP-1. The rockets’ Merlin engines burn the RP-1 kerosene mixed with super-cold liquid oxygen.
Musk tweeted Friday night that the Falcon Heavy’s first test flight, scheduled to blast off from Florida’s Space Coast next month, will have his midnight cherry Tesla Roadster on-board.
The Falcon Heavy’s “payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity,” Musk tweeted. “Destination is Mars orbit.”
The repurposed car “will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent,” he wrote.
Musk’s Twitter followers weren’t sure whether to take him seriously." spaceflight now
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OK. Perhaps this is a joke, or perhaps it is not. If it is a joke, I like it. There is too little humor in the world these days. pl