r/spaceporn Feb 07 '18

Surreal, absurd, outlandish, preposterous... But there it is. The entire earth clearly reflected off the side of a car. [1920x1080]

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49.5k Upvotes

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72

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '18

Is there a window in the cargo bay?

144

u/NotTimHeidecker Feb 07 '18

Nope - the car is just fully exposed.

7

u/Lg88slc Feb 07 '18

The vacuum of space doesn’t have an effect on the car?

28

u/Claytonius_Homeytron Feb 07 '18

It hasn't been up there long enough to have any real visible changes. With enough time you'll see the paint jog get bleached, but that could take decades maybe.

36

u/columbus8myhw Feb 07 '18

It was in the Van Allen belts for several hours so it's probably a bit radioactive though

3

u/Lg88slc Feb 07 '18

That’s pretty interesting.

1

u/evolutionary_defect Feb 07 '18

Wasnt there some worry about electricity doing some weird shit to it in the allen belts? Am I imagining that?

1

u/columbus8myhw Feb 07 '18

No idea, but it's not like we're gonna drive it ever again anyway

EDIT: I heard they took out the car battery, maybe that's why they did it

1

u/Dan_Q_Memes Feb 07 '18

Region dense with highly charged particles + electronics is not a great combo, but it was shielded or redundant enough to work. Ionizing radiation is bad for organics and electronics alike, but it isn't undefeatable.

0

u/evolutionary_defect Feb 07 '18

Damn space, always has to be deadly, like it thinks we're not supposed to be there or sumthin

49

u/rebootyourbrainstem Feb 07 '18

At the press conference after the launch Elon Musk said they didn't really do anything to make it spaceworthy. It's just a car, in space. Welded to a rocket and some camera mounts.

Seems to be holding up okay, but nobody really knows...

12

u/Lg88slc Feb 07 '18

So this is a fun little experiment, really? That’s pretty damn neat.

19

u/assignment2 Feb 07 '18

This was a test flight, on test flights they use weight to simulate cargo, typically concrete blocks. On this one they used a car.

5

u/Lg88slc Feb 07 '18

That makes sense. I’m a fan of Musk’s weight choice.

0

u/Qwiggalo Feb 07 '18

No he means putting a car into space and exposing it to space might produce an unknown event because it's never been done, they only ever put things in space with specific materials in mind.

10

u/_tylermatthew Feb 07 '18

I'm sure it's having an effect, but not one that is visible via our view of it.

It's not like a lack of atmospheric pressure would really affect the mostly solid materials that make up a car, the liquid in any LCDs would probably boil off pretty quickly, I don't know what else would really visibly change though.

1

u/Claeyt Feb 07 '18

The only thing a vacuum would affect would be enclosed pressurized air. I did read they let the air out of the tires and some other air controlled things. But since it's not running none of the engine or other compartments inside it would be pressurized in any way.

1

u/Lg88slc Feb 07 '18

I guess that makes sense. I’ve learned a lot through this event. Thanks for informing me, friends.