Elon Musk’s SpaceX Launched A Car Into Space And Twitter Users Launched The Jokes

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On Tuesday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took a break from distrusting A.I., building a hyperloop, and selling flamethrowers and cars to instead launch one of those aforementioned cars into outer damn space. The SpaceX Falcon Heavy made a successful launch, with Musk tweeting later in the day that their test payload — a $200K Tesla Roadster playing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” because that was the silliest thing they could imagine — had successfully exceeded Mars’ orbit. (They had intended for it to orbit Mars, so maybe “successfully” was the wrong word there.)

Meanwhile on Twitter, people were making jokes and imagining what Elon Musk might be up to:

https://twitter.com/AlexJamesFitz/status/960918869950058496

Musk even responded to that Baby Groot picture:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/960951470190313472

Some people also offered praise for the David Bowie soundtrack and reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Others just marveled at the myriad trials and tribulations of life in 2018.

https://twitter.com/missbreton/status/961092340617240576

And some offered theories about why Elon Musk really sent that car into space.

Other theories were posited, some a bit more conspiratorial than others.

https://twitter.com/markokloos/status/960961519897935873

Some people saw a prime opportunity to make puns.

https://twitter.com/dogboner/status/961009448604110850
https://twitter.com/BoogTweets/status/961001214623219713

While others saw this launch as an opportunity to set up a profitable “let’s launch people into the sun” side business.

It was a truly inspirational day.

Although some people just wanted to start a fight. (Careful, dude, he’ll launch your car into the sun.)

And, finally, someone proffered a classic Carl Sagan picture to remind everyone not to get too corporate with our space travel.