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The Future Is Now: Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster Flies Using SpaceX Thrusters

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The Future Is Now: Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster Flies Using SpaceX Thrusters

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Rocket technology helped transform the family car from a childhood cartoon fantasy into an engineering reality. The post The Future Is Now: Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster Flies Using SpaceX Thrusters first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

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The Future Is Now: Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster Flies Using SpaceX Thrusters

Rocket technology helped transform the family car from a childhood cartoon fantasy into an engineering reality.

Posted by Sunday, October 18, 2026 at 07:00pm

The cartoons of my childhood promised a future with flying cars, and SpaceX CEO and trillionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk apparently decided the future had waited long enough.

Tesla has unveiled a thruster-equipped Roadster that actually took flight during its demonstration.

Technical and regulatory challenges have so far prevented the much-hyped flying car sector from getting off the ground.

Musk revealed Tesla‘s new Roadster sports car during a launch event at a SpaceX test facility in Texas.

During the demo, which was livestreamed on Tesla’s X account, the car launched from a ramp that curled over so the vehicle was upside down, appearing to defy gravity by clinging to the surface before flying off the end, and then rolled over 180 degrees midair to land on its wheels.

As I have chronicled here at Legal Insurrection, Musk and his SpaceX teams have already delivered reusable rocket boosters, launched fascinating NASA missions, carried astronauts safely to and from the International Space Station, and caught a returning Super Heavy booster with “Mechazilla”.

This is the New Millennium so many of us dreamed about, and while production is targeted for 2028 and public-road approval remains outstanding, I am delighted to see the flying-car department finally getting some attention.

The new Roadster is a joint project of SpaceX and Tesla. It uses compressed air via SpaceX-designed thrusters to launch the car.

The car uses 10 nozzles and what Musk described as “ultra high-pressure air tanks” to propel itself, both in the air, and to accelerate quickly when on the ground. He described the technology as “the results of what happens when you have a collaboration with the world’s best car company and the world’s best rocket company.”

He said the car will go into production in 2028, although throughout Tesla’s history, Musk has made promises about when things would be accomplished, only to miss that timeline by a number of years.

…And whether the car is able to truly fly is very difficult to say, despite Thursday night’s demonstration. It certainly didn’t have any demonstration of long-range flight.

In recent years, there have been many advancements in electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, known as eVTOL’s. While there are some working models, there are still many engineering roadblocks to road-worthy cars that can truly fly.

The Federal Aviation Administration is already saying it does not consider this vehicle an aircraft. However, the Department of Transportation is monitoring developments.

“The Tesla vehicle does not meet the FAA’s definition of an aircraft,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement to POLITICO, meaning the agency would not need to certify the vehicle as airworthy. The agency didn’t immediately respond to a follow-up request asking about its general jurisdiction over the airspace.

At this point, much is unknown about the Tesla Roadster, made in collaboration with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and equipped with thrusters. It’s expected to start production in 2028. At the demonstration Thursday in Texas, Musk, Tesla’s CEO, said the sports car will eventually be the company’s only manually driven vehicle in its line of models.

“So if it’s going to be the only manually driven car, let’s take it to the limits and beyond the limits,” he said.

To drive on the nation’s roads, the car would have to comply with standards from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that lay out design requirements related to brake pedals and backup cameras, among other features — though not flying.

Social media has been filled with fun memes related to this development.

One cited the movie “Back to the Future.”

Sadly, for Porsche, the launch of its new product could not have had worse timing.

Some have projected the complications associated with travel by flying car.

My son has held off on getting a new car. He may be moved to make his first new car purchase.

Perhaps the best news is that this is only one of many collaborative projects between SpaceX and Tesla.

“You’re going to see the results of what happens when you have a collaboration with the world’s best car company and the world’s best rocket company,” Musk said before the show.

“This is the culmination of incredible work by Tesla and SpaceX engineers working closely together to make something that you haven’t seen in any movie, that is better than any James Bond car, better than – well, I don’t know, I’ve never seen anything like this,” he added.

Additional group projects by Tesla and SpaceX include an effort to make semiconductors for Tesla’s vehicles and robots, along with a chip just for SpaceX’s AI satellites, Bloomberg noted.

Tesla overlaps “on so many fronts with SpaceX,” as Musk put it on a recent earnings call.

The Roadster is another reminder that space exploration does not end at the launchpad. The engineering developed to conquer the heavens often returns to Earth, improving transportation, medicine, manufacturing, and daily life.

It also confirms the importance of supporting space exploration efforts.

In this case, rocket technology helped transform the family car from a childhood cartoon fantasy into an engineering reality… which may not have happened without the robust launch-and-return cadence established by Musk’s team.

The New Millennium may have arrived late, but it has finally come…powered by SpaceX thrusters.

 

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출처: Legalinsurrection.com

작성자: Leslie Eastman

원문 게시일: 2026-10-18T23:00:26Z

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