SpaceX oddity: how Elon Musk sent a car towards Mars
by Bonnie Malkin from on (#3F9G9)
A Starman sitting in a tin can is currently navigating the heavens, soundtracked by David Bowie. How did it - and we - get there?
It takes a beat or two for the brain to compute. The image is startling, incongruous, barmy. A car floats in space. At the wheel is a spacesuit, seatbelt on. Earth hangs behind it. The two objects don't work together. The image jars like bad Photoshop. But it is real.
The photograph was beamed down to Earth courtesy of Elon Musk's ego, bravado and taste for the absurd. It is human folly and genius rolled into one, a picture that sums up 2018 so far. Life on Earth feels precarious, so we look to the stars.
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