
Tesla Roadster has been officially logged as a celestial object by NASA - neverminder
https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/status/961611437796937728
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ldenneau
The ATLAS near-Earth asteroid survey (full disclosure: I am on this project)
detected the Roadster last night as part of routine operations:

[https://twitter.com/fallingstarIfA/status/962013418143195141](https://twitter.com/fallingstarIfA/status/962013418143195141)

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bmcusick
This NASA filing undercuts Elon's claim that the Roadster is headed for the
Asteroid belt. 1.7 AU is past Mars (1.5 AU) but well short of Ceres (2.77 AU).
I think it's fair to call him out for unreasonable exaggeration on that one.

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dtparr
Yeah I'm unclear if they were exaggerating, or just wrong. It seems unlikely
you'd generate a plot showing an intentionally wrong trajectory/aphelion that
could be shot down by later observation. I'm actually wondering if they just
had insufficient or insufficiently accurate data initially on its
position/velocity and as they got more observation time, corrected it.

>But astronomers online noticed some discrepancies with the numbers Musk
tweeted, and SpaceX ultimately sent a revised orbit to NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory on Wednesday (You can find it by selecting “target body” -143205.)
The new orbit shows that the car will indeed travel farther out than the orbit
of Mars, but not far enough to make it to the asteroid belt. The belt begins
about 329 million miles from the Sun, and the Tesla will reach a distance
about 160 million miles away from the Solar System’s star.

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16983744/spacex-tesla-
falc...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16983744/spacex-tesla-falcon-heavy-
roadster-orbit-asteroid-belt-elon-musk-mars)

~~~
beambot
That still definitely sets the record for most miles traveled by an
automobile.

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bmcusick
And with so little wear and tear! Sure, the ionizing radiation will eventually
do a number on the paint job, but compared to any other car that's travelled
180 million miles, it looks FANTASTIC!

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peterjlee
How does one go about telling the DMV that your car is no longer in use
because you sent it up to space on a rocket?

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martin_bech
Im sure they have a form for that.

~~~
erik_seaberg
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/febfde34-fc2b-415a...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/febfde34-fc2b-415a-bc1c-0d51c7e4fff4/reg102.pdf?MOD=AJPERES)

"The vehicle(s) listed below will not be operated, moved, or left standing
(parked) upon any California highway[....]"

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mhandley
Odd that it doesn't mention the Falcon 9 stage 2 that the Tesla is still
attached to. That's much larger than the Tesla itself, so you'd have thought
it worth mentioning.

~~~
jeffwass
Are there any pictures of the Tesla + Falcon stage together?

All pictures I’ve seen of the Tesla were carefully cropped to show only the
car.

~~~
dtparr
I don't think they were actually cropped, I think the way they setup the
roadster on an "incline" and then placed camera mounts to capture the driver
means that none of them are pointed 'down' at the 2nd stage.

See
[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/02/08/16/48FF7CDC0000057...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/02/08/16/48FF7CDC00000578-0-image-a-5_1518108011435.jpg)
for camera positions.

To get a picture of both, you'd really need alot more distance away, or to be
looking mostly 'down' towards the payload adapter.

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jonas21
> A plaque on the attachment fitting between the Falcon Heavy upper stage and
> the Tesla is etched with the names of more than 6,000 SpaceX employees.

That's a pretty unique employee benefit.

~~~
Theodores
Also underplayed in the media thus far, yet a key feature. I wonder whether
this is because the media were not briefed on that?

Normally the media just parrot talk press releases so I guess the name plaque
was there just for the team and not really for the wider audience.

Incidentally, is 'presure' an American version of British English 'pressure'?

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PeanutNore
It's 'pressure' here as well, 'presure' would just be a misspelling.

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ynniv
Fastest production car ever built.

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perseusprime11
Is it a working model? does it have an engine?

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mhandley
It has a huge great rocket engine and fuel tanks attached. Does it still
qualify as "production" with that minor modification?

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perseusprime11
No. Aliens should be able to take this and drive on their roads.

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TeMPOraL
Should be able to if they can fit new batteries in.

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hsnewman
By definition a celestial object is a natural object.
[http://www.yourdictionary.com/celestial-
object](http://www.yourdictionary.com/celestial-object)

So how does a Tesla Roadster classify?

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Stratoscope
You are correct: by the standard definition, the Roadster is not a celestial
object.

It was just loose terminology in the tweet. When you look up the Roadster on
the HORIZONS database it doesn't call it a celestial object.

To see the details, first click the link in the tweet:

[https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?CGISESSID=c3cbd47fbf60...](https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?CGISESSID=c3cbd47fbf603007d1b627107c28962f&s_body=1#top)

Then click the Cancel button at the bottom of the page. It should now show
SpaceX Roadster for the Target Body, and a Generate Ephemeris button at the
bottom. Click that button for details.

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mortenjorck
The thing I'm most curious about is how long Earth will be able to get a 30fps
1080p video stream from the vehicle.

In a way, it feels like a sort of generally-accessible, high-definition
version of a classic NASA probe - we've all seen pictures from space after
they've been meticulously stitched together by NASA imaging professionals, but
this is the first time anyone in the world can visit a website and get a live,
full-frame-rate video stream from the vacuum of space.

~~~
bryananderson
All communication ceased about 12 hours after launch. The vehicle has no solar
panels, so the battery (presumably not the stock one) depleted.

NASA regularly broadcasts live HD video from a comparable distance (ISS).

Not so easy to do from deep space.

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s_dev
One of the arguments against theism used to be Russell's Celestial Teapot.

Now there will actually be a sophisticatedly designed and constructed object
just orbiting the Sun.

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SAI_Peregrinus
There may or may not be a teapot in the trunk of the Tesla. Musk isn't saying.

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Fjolsvith
What are the laws on space salvage? Just wondering in case I happen across
that Roadster someday.

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xingped
Finders keepers!

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clort
Ok, but does this space vehicle have a name?

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dpflan
So is this now a silly setup for a "celestial" car chase? :) (e.g. Fast and
Furious 1293: Interstellar Edition)

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TeMPOraL
"Drifting past Ceres" just got a whole new meaning.

