David Bowie soundtracks historic SpaceX flight

With twice the launch power of any existing rocket, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy has sent Musk’s beloved midnight cherry Tesla Roadster car into space with a space-suited dummy named Starman – in a nod to Bowie’s 1972 anthem - in the driving seat.

Bowie’s seminal 1971 song ‘Life on Mars?’ was used to soundtrack a promotional animated video that was premiered a day before the flight.

The Tesla and its space-suited Starman passenger have been sent into an elliptical orbit around the Sun that reaches out as far as the planet Mars.

The convertible car will now be playing David Bowie’s pre-Apollo 11 song ‘Space Oddity’ – a song about an astronaut who is lost forever to the void of space - on repeat for its billion year elliptic Mars orbit.   

A relatively low cost launch thanks to the recovery and reuse of the Falcon Heavy’s boosters, multi-billionaire Musk hopes the launch will be a game-changer.

"It'll be game-over for all other heavy-lift rockets," he said. "It'll be like trying to sell an aircraft where one aircraft company has a reusable aircraft and all the other companies had aircraft that were single-use where you would parachute out at your destination and the plane would crash-land randomly somewhere.

“Crazy as that sounds - that's how the rocket business works."

> Better than anything
> Thanks @elonmusk #Starman #falconheavy #SpaceOddity pic.twitter.com/XRFIwBAyxO > > — SLADVCE (@Efimolo) February 6, 2018