Elon Musk has just shown himself to be one cool cucumber after blasting the latest SpaceX rocket into space, carrying a Tesla playing David Bowie’s Space Oddity for always and infinity.
As earthlings everywhere erupt into rapturous applause at this bold feat, spare a thought for all the aliens out there who are not familiar with Bowie’s back catalogue.
Uninitiated to the Starman’s various experimental personas – or indeed the mesmerisingly creepy Labyrinth appearance – the little green men will undoubtedly be scratching their antennas while wondering, ‘Who on Mars is Major Tom and what does he want?’
Luckily for these guys, Elon Musk has it covered, ensuring aliens lightyears from now will know just who sent the cherry red Tesla Roadster, complete with a test dummy dressed in SpaceX’s newest space suit.
Posting on Instagram, Musk revealed a picture of the circuit board, where the following message is proudly printed:
Made on Earth by humans.
Get ready to be both impressed and jealous, aliens! But please don’t invade us for the purpose of harvesting our glam rock supplies…
People were excited before they even knew about this message, but this detail has sent them soaring to new heights of admiration for the 46-year-old business magnate.
One person simply squealed, ‘You are so awesome!!!’ while another blushed ‘You’re a hero.’
One Musk-ateer was so delighted, they made the following emotionally charged comment:
Love you Elon. Hope one day I will be able to meet you in person and share my vision with you. Vision that we already sharing. Thank you for your amazing and inspiring life and work.
However, there are some fans who are a little skeptical regarding any potential aliens’ ability to comprehend the message, which is of course written in the human language of English.
One person queried, ‘How do you know they can read English?’ while another deadpanned, ‘Hope u also send a guide to learning ENGLISH Alien edition with it.’
To be fair, this Tesla will be speeding along at around seven miles per second so if these aliens are technologically advanced enough to catch it then they may well have invented their own version of Google Translate.
Other people have raised concerns about this message leading aliens directly to us. I mean, this could well be a heartwarming ET scenario but there is always the possibility of an Independence Day situation.
One person trembled, ‘what if the aliens used that to track us back to earth?’ while another even began to panic over the threat of a ‘clone army’:
i am sure there are all kinds of lucky charms stuffed into the seats, dope, fingernails, small messages etc.. and no doubt some dna, but who’s?? might be made into a clone army somewhere!!
*Gulp*…
Whatever the universe has in store for this one-of-a-kind car, this is an incredibly cool week all round for anyone fascinated with space.
Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.