The recent test flight of SpaceX’s reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle, Falcon Heavy, garnered international attention and countless Internet viewers … not only because of the promise it holds for the future of space travel, but also due to what was carried inside.
Falcon Heavy launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 6 after minor delays, and headed skyward. Within 10 minutes of launch, its reusable side boosters separated from the center core and returned in near-perfect synchronization to their respective landing zones at Cape Canaveral, prompting chants and cheers from the crowd gathered at the space center to watch the mission. However, the center booster — which was supposed to land delicately on a drone ship out at sea — experienced an engine problem during its descent and was lost when it plummeted into the water at over 300 miles per hour.
The payload inside of Falcon Heavy was arguably the most attention-grabbing part of the mission. Once in orbit, the rocket’s capsule burst open to release Elon Musk’s personal car — a cherry red, electric, 2008 Tesla roadster, with a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy stowed in the glove compartment and blasting David Bowie songs on the radio. The first commercial car sent into space, the roadster is carrying a passenger dubbed “Starman” — a dummy wearing the SpaceX-designed spacesuit that SpaceX plans to have its own human astronauts wear someday. The car is on an interstellar path heading towards the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, and could be in orbit for millions of years, unless it’s damaged by the conditions of space or on the slight off-chance that it crashes into Earth or Mars.
Some are thrilled by the scientific implications of the roadster being sent into space. Others have called it a work of art, a silly publicity stunt, or a waste of a very expensive car that most people would’ve gladly taken off Musk’s hands.
Others in the space exploration community, however, have pointed out that sending a personal car into space could carry contamination risks. Most spacecraft are prepared in a cleanroom setting before being launched into space. For example, the Curiosity rover that’s currently carrying out experiments on Mars was fully integrated and tested in the High Bay 1 cleanroom at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., before being sent into space in November 2011. The Spacecraft Assembly Facility is a Class 10,000 ISO 7 cleanroom with horizontal airflow and return. The James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Telescope, spent time in a Class 10,000 cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Sensitive optics and instruments inside these spacecraft need to be protected from contamination, as a mission could be ruined by exposure.
Furthermore, something launched into space that’s eventually going to come back to Earth will be examined upon its return, and Earth-based contamination may cause confusion as to what may really be out in space. For example, a Russian cosmonaut made a claim in late 2017 that living bacteria had been found on the outside of the International Space Station and that the bacteria came from outer space. However, this was met with a healthy dose of skepticism, as the bacteria most likely came from Earth contamination prior to a satellite launch.
