Is the Tesla Roadster Flying on the Falcon Heavy’s Maiden Flight Just Space Junk?

The maiden flight of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy booster, slated to launch tomorrow (Feb. 6), comes factory-equipped with a Tesla Roadster as a part of the payload/ballast, and is meant to be hurled toward a solar orbit that could take it as far out as the orbit of Mars.

But what's the point of sending a car into space? Is it bound to become just more space junk? We asked spaceflight experts to weigh in.

"Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity. Destination is Mars orbit," tweeted SpaceX founder, CEO and lead designer Elon Musk, referencing the David Bowie song. "Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn't blow up on ascent." [In Photos: SpaceX's 1st Falcon Heavy Rocket at the Pad]

In a more recent tweet, Musk said, "Falcon Heavy launch simulation almost ready. Will be set to Bowie's Life on Mars." Musk also commented that the Tesla's glove box will contain a copy of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Pan Books, 1979) by Douglas Adams, as well as a towel and a sign saying "Don't Panic" (an iconic phrase from the book).

"I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future," Musk tweeted on Dec. 2.

Shipping out

Hurling into space using an automobile as a mass simulator is certainly a first. Back in the early development days of NASA's Saturn V booster, several Saturn C-1 test boosters carried thousands of gallons of water to mimic the weight of fully fueled "live" rocket stages.

But does shooting a Roadster into space constitute a frivolous addition to orbital debris?

"He is shipping it out of Earth orbit, so I do not think that there is any risk here," said orbital-debris expert Darren McKnight, technical director for Integrity Applications in Chantilly, Virginia. "The enthusiasm and interest that he generates more than offsets the infinitesimally small 'littering' of the cosmos."

However, McKnight said "it is [a] huge waste of a beautiful car, so I would be happy to take the brand-new red Tesla off his hands, and he can send my five-year old silver Prius into space."

Launch license

On Feb. 2, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation issued its launch authorization for the Falcon Heavy via Transportation License Number: LLS 18-107.

That license gives the go-ahead for flight of the huge rocket, noting that flight begins with ignition of the first stage from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and transportation of the modified Tesla Roadster as a "mass simulator" to a hyperbolic orbit with the sun, meaning on a trajectory that will allow it to escape Earth's gravity.

"Flight includes landing of the Falcon Heavy first stage core and side boosters as indicated in the license application," the license states. "A flight is concluded upon SpaceX's last exercise of control over the Falcon Heavy vehicle, including the safing of Falcon Heavy vehicle stages or components that reach a hyperbolic orbit."

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