When SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time on February 6, 2018, Elon Musk made sure the maiden voyage would capture the world’s imagination. Instead of loading the test flight with standard equipment or an empty payload, the billionaire entrepreneur chose something much more eccentric: his own 2010 Tesla Roadster.
Nearly seven years later, the bright red convertible is still drifting silently through space, orbiting the Sun and reminding people just how audacious that launch was.
The car, complete with a mannequin nicknamed “Starman” dressed in a SpaceX spacesuit, was strapped into the driver’s seat before lift-off, per the Sky Live. Photographs of the vehicle with Earth looming in the background quickly went viral, turning the stunt into one of the most iconic moments in recent space exploration. Musk had labeled the attempt a 50–50 gamble, but it worked flawlessly, with Falcon Heavy proving its power as the most capable rocket in operation at the time.
While the launch was undeniably a demonstration of technical prowess, it was also designed as a joke, something Musk himself admitted. He said he wanted to send “the silliest thing we can think of” into orbit rather than something ordinary. Before the launch, he even polled people on social media for ideas, but ultimately settled on his own daily commuter car, one that he had driven to and from Tesla’s headquarters.
Since then, the Roadster has been on a cosmic journey that few could have predicted. According to the tracking site whereisroadster.com, the vehicle has now been in space for six years, eleven months, and twenty-five days, meaning its seventh anniversary is just weeks away. At present, the car is nearly 240 million miles from Earth and traveling at a blistering speed of almost 4,000 miles per hour. It is currently orbiting closer to the Sun, around 151 million miles away from the star. These staggering numbers make the Roadster not only the most unconventional car trip in history, but also the fastest car humanity has ever placed beyond Earth.
Of course, Musk added a few extra touches to ensure the journey would carry his trademark sense of humor. The car’s sound system was programmed to loop David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” continuously. If the battery still holds, the track would have played more than 694,000 times by now, per CNET. Inside the glove compartment, a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was stashed away, a nod to another interstellar adventure, along with a Hot Wheels miniature of the very same Roadster, perched on the dashboard.
Although some critics dismissed the stunt as a publicity ploy, the Tesla Roadster floating through space continues to be a symbol of both ambition and eccentricity. Long after the music stops and the car deteriorates from radiation, the memory of Starman cruising among the stars will remain one of the most unforgettable chapters in the modern space age.