On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s companies achieved their most successful PR stunt yet: launching a midnight cherry Tesla Roadster into space, with a dummy pilot — nicknamed “Starman” — on board.
The $200,000 sports car, which was originally destined to orbit in the sun in a Trans-Mars injection, has become an instant hit online, despite taking something of a wrong turn. The payload was overshot, so it’ll actually be heading into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Enter the Elon Musk Gear Giveaway
Even though Starman’s slacking on the job, he’s inspiring some really good memes on Twitter. Here are a few of our favorites:
Classic.
How dare you expose us like this, Starman!!!
Time is a flat circle
Can’t relate because I know nothing about Tesla but, lol.
Relatable.
Watch out!
This meme is just never going to die, is it?
The future is now.
Finally, my favorite:
It’s unclear where Starman is on his journey right now, but one thing’s for sure — people are seriously invested in this dummy’s voyage. On Tuesday, SpaceX live streamed Starman’s voyage, and 2 million people tuned in on Twitter. So in addition to achieving meme infamy, it seems people actually care about this tiny rocket man.
However, Starman’s trip to the asteroid belt could quite literally be a bumpy one, as these objects could pummel and/or destroy the sports car. Since the asteroid belt is about 1 AU thick, it’s very likely that Starman will be hit by something — it’s just unclear how much damage it’ll do.
All that said, we wish Starman all the best on his tour of the solar system. Maybe he’s so beloved because we’re all living through him as he zooms into the vacuum of space, leaving all the bad takes on Twitter far behind. At this point, being pulverized by asteroids might be less painful than this news cycle.
Ad astra, little guy!
