The Physics Behind Tesla’s Flying Roadster
We’ve been promised flying cars for decades. We finally have one. Well, sort of.
Last week, Elon Musk revealed Tesla’s long-delayed Roadster 2 with a few bells and whistles. The car flies—but not for very long—and the prototype also did a few other things normal cars can’t, like driving up a vertical wall and jumping over Tesla’s entire lineup of vehicles.
This raises two questions: Should we let humans drive up walls and into the air? Given their trouble navigating two-dimensional roads, this seems like an obvious no. But that’s one for lawyers and the Federal Aviation Administration to figure out. The other question is, how did the Roadster 2 prototype do this stuff? We can answer that ourselves, with physics.
Driving Up a Wall
Let’s start with how the car drove up a circular ramp and then stayed glued to it Spider-Man–style, completely upside down. I don't think...
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