MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. Russian space corporation Roscosmos’s spokesman Igor Burenkov believes that the launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket with a Tesla car as a payload was an excellent advertising trick.
"The point is there are private companies that do business very well and that are interested in drawing more investment," Burenkov said on the Ekho Moskvy radio station. "For this they arrange for all sorts of promo events… The rocket put in space not some worthless dummy, a payload nobody will be sorry to lose, but a very specific motor vehicle," he said.
"Something has to be done to boost business. Tesla is not doing very well. Everybody knows that. It was an excellent trick. Just wonderful," Burenkov said.
Falcon Heavy belongs to the US corporation SpaceX. It blasted off from the 39A launched pad on Cape Canaveral on February 7 to put in space a Tesla Roadster from the private collection of the company’s founder, Elon Musk, with a starman mannequin wearing a space suit at the wheel.