Tesla News: Russia Sends Toy Car Into Space To Poke Fun At Elon Musk

A team of scientists from a Russian university announced that they had sent a toy car into space Friday, in order to make fun of Elon Musk, who launched a red Tesla sports car into space in 2018.

The scientists from Tomsk State University in the Russian region of Siberia, shared a YouTube video where a red Zhiguli toy car was sent into the cosmos on June 1 with a small effigy of Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia's space flight program Roscomos. This is a throwback to a white mannequin named "Starman" that was put inside the red Tesla that launched in February 2018.

The Moscow Times reported that the Russian toy car floated in the air for 16 hours and traveled 2,000 miles before eventually landing between Mongolia and China. Zhiguli vehicles were made popular during the Soviet Union, but are no longer manufactured.

Musk is the CEO of the Tesla electric car company, as well as the head of Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX. The company's mission, according to its website, "is to enable humans to become a spacefaring civilization and a multi-planet species by building a self-sustaining city on Mars."

Dmitry Rogozin has been frequently critical of Musk, saying that he would not want his help with developing reusable rocketry for space travel. He has said that Musk is "killing competitors" due to the U.S. government being involved with his launches.