Part 4/9:
While the image of Starman drifting in space has captured our imagination, the reality of cosmic conditions poses inevitable deterioration. The spacecraft and its occupant are continually bombarded by cosmic rays, solar wind, and micrometeoroids, which gradually erode their materials.
Materials like plastics and rubbers—integral to the Tesla and the spacesuit—are not built to endure such relentless radiation. Experts infer that within a year, these organic components will suffer severe damage, becoming brittle and shattered, much like plastic left in the sun for months. The spacecraft's metallic parts—more resilient—won't be immune; over millennia, they will succumb to cosmic erosion, retained only as fragmentary debris, subjected to the relentless pull of gravitation and space weather.