# The Great Ongoing Space Exploration Thread

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Tags:** science-math\
**Created:** [November 16, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703 "2020-11-16T12:18:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 457

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2022, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/457 "2022-11-05T01:12:59Z")

</div>

> [@Fantasy funeral](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fantasy-funeral/974351/17):
>
> do you remember that stupid Tesla that got shot into space, that tribute to Elon Musk’s narcissism?

Didn’t want to pollute the other thread, so I’m replying here. You’ve misinterpreted the events. That was the first flight of the Falcon Heavy. SpaceX offered a free ride to several parties, but no one took the offer–after all, this was the first flight of a very complicated system, and the possibility of failure was high. Even free is not cheap if your payload gets destroyed. So instead they flew a dummy payload to prove the system. This is not a new thing, and many brand-new rockets do the same–it’s just that they usually lift a boring stack of steel plates or the like. SpaceX flew a car instead. The net result was the same and had the side effect of gaining more outside interest.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703)._