On Tuesday Feb. 6, the SpaceX team, through the help of NASA’s famous Cape Canaveral launch pad, successfully launched their Falcon Heavy rocket along with a personal item of Elon Musk’s into outer space.

The rocket, now the most powerful ever created by a scale of two, towers 230 feet into the air and can carry 64 metric tons of weight into space. For reference, that is more than the weight of a Boeing 737 filled with passengers, fuel, and luggage. It carries 27 merlin engines that together produce 5 million pounds of thrust at takeoff, or the power of 18 Boeing 747s (SpaceX).

So what was this test launch carrying for a payload? Well, it was Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster, the first car that Tesla sold back in 2008. Operated by a mannequin in a space suit dubbed SpaceMan, Musk dazzled the world with photos from the three cameras mounted on the vehicle. It is expected to wander through space for millions of years, first headed to the Mars orbit and then towards the asteroid belt.

Many wonder what was the point of this stunt, but it appears to have had an effect on some of the Hollis Brookline student body. Joe Messina ‘19 stated “Initially, I didn’t have any particular interests in space exploration, having missed the notorious space age of the 70’s, but Musk’s revival of the industry has boosted my interest, and I think the same can be said for many people our age.”

Zaki Quereshy ‘19 built upon this, hoping Musk will continue research into “the physics behind our universe and the gas giants that exist at the edge of our solar system.”

Although it may seem ridiculous to launch a car with a mannequin into space, Musk certainly has done a couple things right , and that is surprise us all.