The Roadster is the first standard roadworthy vehicle sent into space, following several special-purpose lunar and Mars rovers.
“Driven” by Starman, a mannequin decked out in SpaceX's signature spacesuit, the car is still circling the cosmos. Ben Pearson created a website that tracks the Roadster's location, whereisroadster.com.
Currently, the red Roadster is 203,408,182 miles, or 18.2 light minutes, from Earth and is moving toward our home planet at a speed of 6,395 mile per hour, according to WhereIsRoadster.com, an independent site tracking the car's real-time location in space using NASA data.
It might be gradually deteriorating over time from the radiation, however it's designed to withstand extreme changes in temperature and resist other detrimental forces in space. Any serious damage to the car, Dr. Wass concluded, would be done by meteorites.
The Roadster is permanently attached to the upper stage of the Falcon Heavy rocket.
The February 2018 launch also shot SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into space and the sports car is still out there in orbit revolving around the sun.
Musk said at the time of launch that he hoped humans will one day establish settlements on other planets in the solar system — a long-running Musk fantasy that also underpins SpaceX's stated mission to colonize Mars.
Surprisingly, speed – defined as a rate of motion – in of itself is not at all a problem for us physically, so long as it's relatively constant and in one direction. Therefore, humans should – in theory – be able to travel at rates just short of the “Universe's speed limit”: the speed of light.
But Einstein showed that the universe does, in fact, have a speed limit: the speed of light in a vacuum (that is, empty space). Nothing can travel faster than 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second). Only massless particles, including photons, which make up light, can travel at that speed.
There isn't any oxygen in space and it's a vacuum that would suck out the fuel before it could combust, so it shouldn't work.
What kind of car is Elon Musk driving? Tesla Model S is the car Musk drives the most. It is one of Tesla's most comfortable and spacious cars. It also has an impressive range of up to 405 miles and accelerates from 0-60mph in 2.4 seconds.
It's somewhat unlikely that Starman will be brought back to Earth in the near future, but perhaps technological advances in the distant future could make this possible. Fascinated by scientific discoveries and media, Anthony found his way here at LabRoots, where he would be able to dabble in the two.
While 1% of anything doesn't sound like much, with light, that's still really fast – close to 7 million miles per hour! At 1% the speed of light, it would take a little over a second to get from Los Angeles to New York. This is more than 10,000 times faster than a commercial jet.
It's possible to get something to 1% the speed of light, but it would just take an enormous amount of energy.
Light-year is the distance light travels in one year. Light zips through interstellar space at 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second and 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers) per year.
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II floats completely untethered, away from the safety of the space shuttle, with nothing but his Manned Maneuvering Unit keeping him alive. The first person in history to do so.
If you do die in space, your body will not decompose in the normal way, since there is no oxygen. If you were near a source of heat, your body would mummify; if you were not, it would freeze. If your body was sealed in a space suit, it would decompose, but only for as long as the oxygen lasted.
Your body will freeze solid and float forever in the vastness of space. While this won't happen immediately, the deep cold of space is -455F (-270 C) which will cause frostbite on exposed skin within seconds and you'll likely freeze completely solid in about a day.
The new Tesla Roadster is expected to be available in three different trims: the base model, the Founder's Series, and the SpaceX Package. The base model is expected to start at around $200,000, while the limited-edition Founder's Series will be priced at approximately $250,000.
“I'm sure he would have a great time,” Reisman told me. But what Reisman took from that exchange was that Musk doesn't find it so impressive to reach low-Earth orbit, where hundreds of satellites, the International Space Station, and most astronauts who have been to space have spent their time.
Currently, the Dual Motor Model S begins at an MSRP of $87,490, down a several thousand compared to late 2022. Despite not having any add-ons, the $87k version of the Model S can travel 0-60 mph in just over three seconds and offers over 400 miles of EPA estimated range.
One academic paper estimated that the chances the car collides with the Earth within the next 15 million years at about 22%. The odds of it crashing into Venus or the Sun each stand at 12%.
Elon Musk rocketed to billionaire status, after entering the elite club in 2012 just nine years later he tops the list. His wealth is based mainly on his shareholdings in the electric car firm Tesla, of which he is the CEO.
The speed of light traveling through a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 meters (983,571,056 feet) per second. That's about 186,282 miles per second — a universal constant known in equations as "c," or light speed.