/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>13820634
Ok, since I am a bit of a space fan, will answer that.

Because it was a completely useless rocket that at that point had 50/50 a chance of either working or tearing itself apart.

Most space agencies simply use a concrete weight or something as a mass simulator for this sort of launches. This concept is known as a boilerplate spacecraft. More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilerplate_(spaceflight)

And such missions have been many, including:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS-105
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS-101
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS-102
etc

all of which were technically "useless" launches.

Elon simply decided to place there something fun. Grab some media attention, and, yes, attempt to pump Tesla's price a little bit.

Also, for comparison how two of the most popular heavy rockets fared at their first flight (and so what they had every reason to expect):

First Delta-IV flight: Failure.
First Ariane 5 flight: Failure.