A Final Salute To Starman, The World's Loneliest Astronaut

A final salute to Starman, the world's loneliest astronaut. It will be the Moon next Aug. 14 that will show us the exact point in the sky to which to send our thoughts
you will be able to answer a question that certainly has often crossed your mind of space enthusiasts... that is: where is Starman now?
You know exactly what I'm talking about... not the alien visitor played by Jeff Bridges in the movie of the same name, but the silent astronaut who has been piloting a red Tesla Roadster car around the Sun for more than three and a half years.
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Do you remember? Given the risk of launch failure (it was assumed 50% chance that the rocket exploded on the ramp, as happened in the previous test), to test what at the time was supposed to be the most powerful rocket in the world, the Falcon Heavy, SpaceX needed a dummy load, that is of no importance in scientific and economic terms.
Elon Musk, the patron of both SpaceX and Tesla, therefore chose his personal Roadster instead of a simple ballast, putting at the wheel a dummy wearing the prototype of the next-generation spacesuit. The same one that we have then really seen in the Crew Dragon astronauts heading to the Space Station

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Credits: Ron Miller
Credits: Nasa/Shutterstock/Storyblocks/Elon Musk/SpaceX/ESA/ESO
Credits: Flickr

Video Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:49 Starman's Mission
02:04 Tesla Roadster's Journey
02:51 Space Environment Challenges
09:23 Farewell to Starman

#InsaneCuriosity #WhereIsStarman? #starman

[InsaneCuriosity]

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[mainstreamlucky]

So Tesla Roadster is officially the fastest car in the history.

[mm-dwrr]

Poor Starman: No:1's truly the loneliest number.
Travel in peace dear friend. 🤩

[MekazaBitrusty]

If only they had installed some solar panels to keep the battery charged. We could have seen the state of Star man and the Tesla roadster.

[Valtrach]

No matter what happens to the car; the message is clear: "Let's cruise to the stars!" and also... Heavy Metal!

[ghanimengal]

Since I was a child I wanted to salute whoever the starman will be.. I think now I'm close to that remarkable moment..

[pedrocarvalho]

One possibility is that this car will be stolen in a few decades or centuries, when spaceships become very cheap and popular, the same way that happened with radios, TVs, computers, cars, etc.

[Jenab]

Every aspiring astronomer should be able to reduce the Keplerian elements of an object in orbit around the sun, with a time of observation, to find the object's position and velocity in heliocentric ecliptic coordinates. After doing the same thing for Earth, and then doing a vector subtraction and a coordinate system rotation, the aspiring astronomer can calculate the object's geocentric right ascension and declination. It is considered to be a very easy task by undergraduate astronomy majors in college. I've written a program on my HP Prime calculator to do this.

[SandsOfArrakis]

Star Man - To boldly go where no car has gone before.

[ckdigitaltheqofth]

None of the star grazing groups looking up in telescopes, bothered to monitor where the Starman is right now.

[karkovice]

There's a flying across the sky! :D

[TheJoeSwanon]

I wonder how long the red paint will last before the sun breaks it down

[johnd]

They need to recover it a few years later to see the effects of space on all those materials.

[ghoward]

I would buy it but it's got too many miles on it...

[Andersonairchris]

While talking about a tesla you show a gasoline engine with the timing cover off 😂

[bobjoatmon]

I absolutely will never understand why SpaceX didn't add some solar cells to keep the batteries charged so the cameras could keep transmitting.

[TheStobb]

The greatest publicity stunt in history

[dalea]

Why didn't add a few solar panels to keep cameras running?

[dr.ofdubiouswisdom]

As a few added touches for Elon's roadster...maybe a parking ticket under the wiper, bumper sticker "Help us Obi-Wan Kenobi- you're our only hope." Golf clubs, Deep Purple's "Space Truckin' song.

[Aranimda]

Star Man complains that his GPS navigation lost maps coverage.