Elon Musk fired a Tesla into orbit, while Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs featured a Winnebago traversing outer space. What’s next, you might ask? If you had your money on an Italian supercar taking to the stars, well, you might just be a winner.
CNET is reporting that Italian automaker Lamborghini is sending carbon fiber materials to the International Space Station, where they will be tested to monitor the effects of cosmic radiation on them. The goal? To glean information that might be useful in both making new cars and designing artificial limbs.
The project is a collaboration between Lamborghini and Houston Methodist Research Institute; the carbon fiber will be on the ISS for a year and a half, putting it in conditions it might never experience on Earth.
As it turns out, automakers and space exploration have a longer history than you might expect. General Motors has a long relationship with NASA, for one thing. And delving even further back into history reveals that GM, Ford and Chrysler were all involved in the moon landing. Lamborghini’s foray into space and experimentation may be groundbreaking in its own right, but it’s also part of a longer tradition.
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