A legal expert in all things space has explained how Elon Musk could land himself in real trouble if his Tesla Roadster floating through space crash lands back into Earth.
And the possibility of it happening is not just one of theory. It could actually happen based off of trajectory.
Musk and SpaceX launched Musk's personal Roadster in to space back in February 2018 as part of a test flight.
Strapped to the SpaceX rocket as a dummy payload, the South African billionaire wanted to use the 'silliest' thing he could think of with the test only having a 50 percent chance of being a success.
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Well, it worked. And to this day, the very real Tesla car remains floating around the planet complete with a mannequin in the driver's seat dressed in a SpaceX astronaut's spacesuit and a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the glove box.
There is even a Hot Wheels version of the Roadster attached to the dashboard area.
And while the car is currently closer to the Sun that Earth after travelling at a staggering 3,988 miles per hour (mph).
But last month, one amateur astronomer thought they saw what was an asteroid that seemed to be passing very close to Earth.
Officials were on alert with the space rock expected to come within 150,000 miles of the planet, which is closer than the Moon, with some fears around a collision with Earth.
Very quickly, though, the Minor Planet Center very quickly went back on its estimates after revealing it was not an asteroid but the very Tesla Roadster that Musk blasted off into space seven years ago.
There's a chance that the car could crash land back into Earth. It's low, though, currently at around six percent.
But Dr Thomas Cheney, the Vice Chancellors Research Fellow in Law at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle upon Tyne, has said such an instance would land Musk in real hot water.
As per Forbes, Cheney said: "Space is big, and the likelihood this causes issues beyond annoying people is minimal, but launching things into outer space should be done responsibly and for clear-cut justifiable purposes, not on the whims of a billionaire.
"It should also have been a warning sign about what sort of person Mr. Musk is."
Whether Musk and Tesla would ever be charged if it crash landed back on Earth is not clean cut, Cheney says, with proof of 'fault' essential.
Cheney explained: "The only legal trouble Musk could get into is if the Tesla hits another human-made object and causes damage, but even then under the liability regime established by the Liability Convention and the Outer Space Treaty it would need to be proven that the Tesla was ‘at fault’ - which is something that we’re yet to define in any useful way - and the injured party would need to be willing to go to the effort and expense of taking legal action against SpaceX and the US government as ultimately the US government is liable under international law for any damage."
For now, the Tesla Roadster continues to zoom through space with Bowie's 'Space Oddity' playing on the car radio on repeat. No, we're not joking.
Topics: Elon Musk, Tesla, Space, Technology, Crime, World News, US News, Cars, Weird
Tom Earnshaw