Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the highly anticipated Cybertruck electric pickup truck in Los Angeles on Thursday, and the vehicle is clearly drawing attention with its striking and unique design. It looks more like a space exploration rover than a truck — the analogy is especially apt, as the Cybertruck is completing a new project with another Musk company, SpaceX, to be used in its upcoming vehicle. alloy as the shell of the Starship spacecraft.
“Yes, it really is bulletproof for a nine-millimeter pistol,” Musk said on stage during the presentation. “It’s the strength of the cladding – it’s a super-hard, cold-rolled stainless steel alloy that we’ve developed. We are going to use the same alloy in the Starship and Cybertruck rocket.”
Musk previously revealed at the Starship Mk1 full-size prototype event that he would use stainless steel for the hull and add glass block cladding to half of the spacecraft to withstand the hottest temperatures during recovery. Inlet (the ship is designed to dive on its stomach through the Earth’s atmosphere before landing). The super-heavy booster that will fly the Starship will be made entirely of stainless steel. The reason for using this material is a combination of cost and performance, as it actually withstands and dissipates high temperatures very well.
Using the same stainless steel alloy for both Tesla and SpaceX would obviously provide some economic benefit, especially if the Cybertruck manages to become a production vehicle (unlikely due to its controversial design, but if Tesla could hold its own based on for savings, it may be possible for the price she showed on stage). There’s another way the Cybertruck could benefit the work of SpaceX, which Elon mentioned on Twitter ahead of the event – Mars needs ground transportation too.
Yes, the “pressurized version” of the Cybertruck will be “the official truck of Mars,” Musk tweeted. As with Elon, sometimes it’s hard to tell the line between a joke and a real plan based on his tweets, but I think he’s taking it literally in this case, at least at this stage of the game.
The Cybertruck rover for astronauts on Mars could theoretically benefit Tesla and SpaceX through the efficiency of cross-production and design, and, as the stainless steel alloy body shows, a significant part of the development of things for space. The benefits have always been the result of the fact that technology often has really useful applications here on Earth.
Post time: May-21-2023