[Okay, on sudden impulse. A Contest for the best very short Sci Fi story about how aliens or future folk might find and misinterpret Elon's Starman Tesla? Fun? Maximum 100 words! I will (maybe) pass some of them on to you-know-who.] ~D. Brin (Feb 7, 2016) -- 24 hour deadline self-imposed.
What's likely to survive longest will be the Roadster's inorganic components, like the aluminum chassis, the lithium-ion battery pack and any glass that doesn't get shattered by meteors.
*Made on Earth by humans* [printed on the circuit board]
Musk saw fit to include several fun novelties in the Roadster, including a circuit board bearing the phrase "Made on Earth by humans," a toy Roadster mounted to the dashboard, and the phrase "Don't Panic!" on the center screen. That's a reference to the 1979 novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams about an accidental space traveler named Arthur Dent. Musk is known for his love of science fiction and even acknowledged naming the SpaceX Falcon series of rockets after the Millennium Falcon of Star Wars fame.
no *music* is involved as there is no sound in a vacuum? Or, for super nit pickers, the mean free path of the solar wind precludes audible sonic frequencies from the Roadster's speakers... ~Jim Horn
You are familiar with the ratio of fatal human doses of radiation to material degradation of such masses as the Roadster has? That the Solar Observatory that orbits the sun closer than the Earth does has been blasted by your mentioned radiation for many years and works just fine, microelectronics and all? That without a major gravity well such as the Earth nearby, the micrometeor flux rate is drastically reduced? That even amateur radio satellites have worked for over 30 years in orbit and continue to do so? Yes, the paint will fade and the plastics will depolymerize from UV while the embedded plasticizers will evaporate away, but the overall integrity of the Roadster should be fine for a very long time. ~ Jim Horn
factoid: It's 'Elon's Lotus roadster with the tesla logo and motor' /check
"“Payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity,” Musk’s tweet read. “Destination is Mars orbit. Will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn’t blow up on ascent.”" ~ E. Musk tweet
"“A Red Car for the Red Planet
“Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring. Of course, anything boring is terrible, especially companies, so we decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel. The payload will be an original Tesla Roadster, playing Space Oddity, on a billion year elliptic Mars orbit.”" - E. Musk Instragram
final note:
"A few weeks later, the car rolled into a SpaceX workshop to be prepped for spaceflight, and the real work began. Things launched into space first must survive the launch, which as you can imagine is both loud and violent. Like all payloads, the Roadster needed to undergo sonic, vibration, vacuum, and other standard testing to make sure that it wouldn’t come apart during the launch and ascent and damage the rocket and that it would survive in space.
It was quickly determined the car needed to be stripped. After all, the only launch it was designed for was a stoplight drag. All the glass had to go, as did the battery. With the battery out, there was no need to keep the drivetrain in, either, so that went, too. Musk himself has been very open about prototype rockets tending to explode, and no one wants to scatter 1,000 pounds of lithium across the upper atmosphere. Other than the obvious weak points like glass, SpaceX engineers were impressed with the rigidity and durability of the Lotus-based Roadster in their tests.
The car was still in the test lab when Musk’s first tweet went out. It took the team by surprise, as the whole thing had been a big secret up until that point and was supposed to remain so until the launch. The tweet, followed by the photo confirmation on Instagram a few weeks later, unleashed a torrent of regulatory inquiries from regulators, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)."
My entry in the Brin contest:
"Amid the debris we discovered an unusual device which stood apart from the vein of particles found in the asteroid belt," Professor Rutledge informed his students.
He activated the modular unit which processed the digital information stored within the anomalous relic. Speakers emitted tinny, crackling sounds amid which the oddly intoned words could just be made out by the eager students.
"...Ground Control to Major Tom, take your protein pills and put your helmet on..."
"We wouldn't even be able to hear this sacred message if it weren't for our atmosphere here on the Red Planet. Praise be to Blackstar!"
