SpaceX signs multi-year agreement with Mattel to make toys and collectibles

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: Mattel has signed a multi-year agreement with SpaceX to create a line of astro-inspired toys and collectibles that'll debut in 2023. SpaceX-themed toys will be produced and marketed under the Matchbox brand. Mattel will also launch collectibles through its collaboration and direct-to-consumer platform, Mattel Creations. Financial terms of the deal were not made public.

SpaceX VP Brian Bjelde said they look forward to working with Mattel to help inspire the next generation of space explorers and enthusiasts.

Details are scant but it's probably safe to assume that the Matchbox line will depict SpaceX's various rockets. We may even see more exotic creations like Starlink satellites or crew capsules.

Hot Wheels, one of Mattel's other toy brands, has already produced a replica of the Tesla Roadster that SpaceX launched into space back in 2018. The die-cast includes a mannequin in a spacesuit in the driver's seat, which SpaceX named Starman, just like the real thing. Hot Wheels also produced a miniature version of the Mars Perseverance Rover that landed on the Red Planet in 2021.

The collectible line will presumably consist of more detailed products with a premium price tag. Could an Elon Musk action figure be in the pipeline?

SpaceX already sells a variety of branded merchandise on its website but most are clothing products.

The collaboration was announced on July 20, which was the 53rd anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon.

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Image credit: CollectSpace

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https://www.techspot.com/news/95394-spacex-signs-multi-year-agreement-mattel-make-toys.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Elon action figure? A spin off of the Trump doll that can lie and self promote? Oh boy .....

 

[wiyosaya]

SpaceX instead of NASA? What the world has become.

 

[Endymio]

SpaceX instead of NASA? What the world has become.

Free market > bloated government bureaucracy.

Elon action figure? A spin off of the Trump doll that can lie and self promote? Oh boy .....

Trump still living in your head rent-free, eh?

 

[sreams]

SpaceX instead of NASA? What the world has become.

A place where space is exciting again. SpaceX is pushing the bar in a way nobody has for decades, and is doing so with systems that are reusable and will cost a fraction of what previous (and current... as in SLS) systems have.

 

[captaincranky]

It's only fitting that Musk should return to the place where he got most of his ideas. Catch me up. Are they paying him, or is he paying them?

 

[sreams]

It's only fitting that Musk should return to the place where he got most of his ideas. Catch me up. Are they paying him, or is he paying them?

It's that easy? Gee... why didn't I (or anybody else) think of that?

Sarcasm aside... reusable first stages are not a NASA idea. Stainless steel (far cheaper) as a rocket building material is not a NASA idea. Belly flop landings and catching rockets in mid air are not NASA ideas.

By your measurement... it seems anybody who builds any rocket at all must be copying NASA.

 

[captaincranky]

By your measurement... it seems anybody who builds any rocket at all must be copying NASA.

"Sarcasm aside", I was referring to Mattel, not NASA. That is, after all, who the thread is about.

Musk is most likely your hero, (FWIW),he's simply not mine

 

[sreams]

"Sarcasm aside", I was referring to Mattel, not NASA. That is, after all, who the thread is about.

Musk is most likely your hero, (FWIW),he's simply not mine

I don't think the guy is a "hero", but I do have an appreciation for his impact. It really can't be denied that multiple industries have seen significant changes due in large part to the guy's influence. Love him or hate him (he is quite the eccentric, and certainly draws all sorts of reactions), it is fair to say that we would not see the shift away from gas powered vehicles, and the shift toward reusable, less expensive rocket systems without the guy's influence... at least not at the pace we have seen over the past 10 years.

 

[captaincranky]

Love him or hate him (he is quite the eccentric, and certainly draws all sorts of reactions),

Mae West famously said, "when I'm good, I'm good, but when I'm bad, I'm better". That certainly can be adapted a bit to summarize Musk's approach to public relations, self promotion, and garnering publicity.

To establish Musk's origins and skill set, he went to college for physics one year, then dropped out. In that field, (were he actually intending to pursue it), a PHD is an absolute necessity. Which leaves Musk with the ability to, "talk the talk", but without the ability to, "walk the walk". He also co-founded Pay Pal. Which is where he excels, sales and finance. He's probably the best salesman that ever lived, and a promoter at the level of P.. T. Barnum. And that's where my acknowledgment of his talent begins and ends.

Musk hasn't really contributed to the advancement. of science, he's gotten rich selling his technological dreams to the public. And he's the best at that there ever was.

When he says, "I'm going to invent a rocket booster that is able to land vertically, and be reused". What he means is, that he's going to talk enough money out of other people's pockets, and hire engineers to do it, while he takes all the credit. So what if rockets in Sc-fi have been doing that for a hundred years or more. Our technology has finally caught up to those fantasies, and Musk knows how to capitalize on it, in spades.

He's (allegedly), the richest man in the world. I doubt that one would be able to categorize him as a "humble public servant". Yet many believe fervently that he is. And it all orbits conveniently around his ability to sell people that impression of him.

 

[AlaskaGuy]

Bill Gates is a college dropout.

 

[Endymio]

When Musk says, "I'm going to invent a rocket booster that is able to land vertically, and be reused". What he means is, that he's going to talk enough money out of other people's pockets, and hire engineers to do it

What Musk did is the hard part. Which is why organizations like NASA, Arianespace, Martin Marietta, Northrup Grumman, and many others never did it, despite having more engineers for much longer than SpaceX did.

As for those who had money "talked out of them" for founding SpaceX, they've grown wildly rich off the endeavor. Perhaps that accounts for your:

 

[sreams]

Mae West famously said, "when I'm good, I'm good, but when I'm bad, I'm better". That certainly can be adapted a bit to summarize Musk's approach to public relations, self promotion, and garnering publicity.

To establish Musk's origins and skill set, he went to college for physics one year, then dropped out. In that field, (were he actually intending to pursue it), a PHD is an absolute necessity. Which leaves Musk with the ability to, "talk the talk", but without the ability to, "walk the walk". He also co-founded Pay Pal. Which is where he excels, sales and finance. He's probably the best salesman that ever lived, and a promoter at the level of P.. T. Barnum. And that's where my acknowledgment of his talent begins and ends.

Musk hasn't really contributed to the advancement. of science, he's gotten rich selling his technological dreams to the public. And he's the best at that there ever was.

When he says, "I'm going to invent a rocket booster that is able to land vertically, and be reused". What he means is, that he's going to talk enough money out of other people's pockets, and hire engineers to do it, while he takes all the credit. So what if rockets in Sc-fi have been doing that for a hundred years or more. Our technology has finally caught up to those fantasies, and Musk knows how to capitalize on it, in spades.

He's (allegedly), the richest man in the world. I doubt that one would be able to categorize him as a "humble public servant". Yet many believe fervently that he is. And it all orbits conveniently around his ability to sell people that impression of him.

I have no idea why you placed "humble public servant" in quotation marks. That is certainly not something I ever stated.

I see results being produced (not just by his companies, but among competitors as well... in entire industries), and he deserves more than a little credit for that. It takes some amount of ego to get those kind of results.

 

[captaincranky]

I have no idea why you placed "humble public servant" in quotation marks. That is certainly not something I ever stated.

How about a little high school English lesson? I don't know where on earth you came up with the idea I was quoting you with that passage. Those are "shock quotes".A primary use of them is to indicate an inverse meaning to the enclosed statement. It follows that endowing a statement thus, is also a basic form of sarcasm. You can look that up. Let's call it, "homework", shall we?

I see results being produced (not just by his companies, but among competitors as well... in entire industries), and he deserves more than a little credit for that. It takes some amount of ego to get those kind of results.

No, it takes enormous ego and drive to accomplish what has done. An ego that unfortunately gets the better of him from time to time. As examples I would direct you to the Cybertruck, manipulating the stock market on the front page, so to speak, with his, "I'm thinking about taking Tesla private", hi-jinks. (I was using quotes in the standard manner there, quoting Musk himself). The SEC did spank publicly him about that, so I'm not "making things up" because of any specific disdain I have for him personally.

I will give him a great amount of credit for lambasting Putin, dropping a bunch of Starlink systems in Ukraine, and taking on the Russian space agency, is his usual brash and boisterous manner.

More recently there's the Twitter debacle. In which Musk (premeditatedly IMO) decided to proceed with "just the tip", and then pulled out quickly. (the quotation marks there are used to highlight the use of a colloquial expression as a sexual innuendo).

Then there was the tantrum he threw when told that it wasn't possible to use his "mini sub" to rescue children trapped in in a cave. I think he called their leader, a "pervert" or a "child molester", when his ambition to become, "their savior", deteriorated into a hissy fit.

I gave Musk all the credit he is due Although I did fail to mention premier bullsh!t artist, and snake oil salesman par excellence.. Perhaps that was out of "respect". <(Oops there go those darned shock quotes again)..

 

[sreams]

How about a little high school English lesson? I don't know where on earth you came up with the idea I was quoting you with that passage. Those are "shock quotes".A primary use of them is to indicate an inverse meaning to the enclosed statement. It follows that endowing a statement thus, is also a basic form of sarcasm. You can look that up. Let's call it, "homework", shall we?

No, it takes enormous ego and drive to accomplish what has done. An ego that unfortunately gets the better of him from time to time. As examples I would direct you to the Cybertruck, manipulating the stock market on the front page, so to speak, with his, "I'm thinking about taking Tesla private", hi-jinks. (I was using quotes in the standard manner there, quoting Musk himself). The SEC did spank publicly him about that, so I'm not "making things up" because of any specific disdain I have for him personally.

I will give him a great amount of credit for lambasting Putin, dropping a bunch of Starlink systems in Ukraine, and taking on the Russian space agency, is his usual brash and boisterous manner.

More recently there's the Twitter debacle. In which Musk (premeditatedly IMO) decided to proceed with "just the tip", and then pulled out quickly. (the quotation marks there are used to highlight the use of a colloquial expression as a sexual innuendo).

Then there was the tantrum he threw when told that it wasn't possible to use his "mini sub" to rescue children trapped in in a cave. I think he called their leader, a "pervert" or a "child molester", when his ambition to become, "their savior", deteriorated into a hissy fit.

I gave Musk all the credit he is due Although I did fail to mention premier bullsh!t artist, and snake oil salesman par excellence.. Perhaps that was out of "respect". <(Oops there go those darned shock quotes again)..

Trouble is... nobody here claimed Elon Musk was humble in any way... so who were you actually talking to?

As for the cave rescue, people criticizing him tend to always conveniently leave out the fact the exchange began with the other guy telling him to sodomize himself. It did not start with somebody telling him the mini-sub wouldn't work.

 

[captaincranky]

What Musk did is the hard part. Which is why organizations like NASA, Arianespace, Martin Marietta, Northrup Grumman, and many others never did it, despite having more engineers for much longer than SpaceX did.

OK, let's agree that US' defense contractors are all just about as corrupt as the Russian military, and have much deeper fangs into US defense spending. The only point unclear to me is if they are actually incompetent, or just milking it for all it's worth.

As for those who had money "talked out of them" for founding SpaceX, they've grown wildly rich off the endeavor. Perhaps that accounts for your:

What a cute meme. Did it take you long to find it? It's a little presumptive, (actually wildly presumptive and quite rude).

No I'm not "jealous" of Musk, nor do I have a working knowledge of stock trading strategies. I'm adult enough to take responsibility for my own destiny. Musk's success has had no impact on my life whatsoever.

Musk's admirers and dare I say "groupies", always jump to the conclusion that if someone doesn't like the man. they must be jealous of him. I'd say that the inverse is more true. His admirers are probably repeating "I wish I was him, I wish was him" over and over and over, in private, while staring at his graven image.

I gave Musk all the credit he is due, in the areas where he deserves it..

Now, why don't you explain to me why, (his constantly exploding :Starship"), needs fins. On one hand I expect they will have thrusters mounted on them for directional control. However they by themselves will have no effect on the "aerodynamics", since the vehicle will be operating in zero gravity, and in an absence of atmosphere. I think he took at least part his inspiration from Commando Cody''s rocket ship: (**)

But what do I know, my clearer thoughts are probably "Obscured by Clouds"....., of envy. @sreams The quotes are there because "Obscured by Clouds", is a song title

There is one person on earth I loathe well in excess of my mere disdain for Musk, and that, "special someone", is Joel Osteen.

(**) Perhaps the fins are there because he didn't want to encroach on Jeff Bezo's phallic design. (however unlikely that may be)

 

[captaincranky]

Trouble is... nobody here claimed Elon Musk was humble in any way... so who were you actually talking to?

Are you trying to deprive me of my 1st amendment right to think out loud?

As for the cave rescue, people criticizing him tend to always conveniently leave out the fact the exchange began with the other guy telling him to sodomize himself. It did not start with somebody telling him the mini-sub wouldn't work.

I think anybody is entitled to drop an F-bomb from time to time, especially in a time of extreme stress. Musk's response was disproportionate, approaching slander.

In fact dropping the F-bomb is allowed once in a PG-13 movie, provided that it is indeed, an expletive, and not a direct sexual reference.

Perhaps the group leader was unaware that the more gentile colloquial way of expressing that sentiment is the much less aggressive "fu*k off". <(the quotes there are used to encapsulate a commonly used slang expression).

Additionally, the group leader likely knew the the sub wouldn't work before Musk even landed, with an entourage and PR people. and his "suggestion" was merely preemptive and entirely justified

 

[sreams]

OK, let's agree that US' defense contractors are all just about as corrupt as the Russian military, and have much deeper fangs into US defense spending. The only point unclear to me is if they are actually incompetent, or just milking it for all it's worth.

What a cute meme. Did it take you long to find it? It's a little presumptive, (actually wildly presumptive and quite rude).

No I'm not "jealous" of Musk, nor do I have a working knowledge of stock trading strategies. I'm adult enough to take responsibility for my own destiny. Musk's success has had no impact on my life whatsoever.

Musk's admirers and dare I say "groupies", always jump to the conclusion that if someone doesn't like the man. they must be jealous of him. I'd say that the inverse is more true. His admirers are probably repeating "I wish I was him, I wish was him" over and over and over, in private, while staring at his graven image.

I gave Musk all the credit he is due, in the areas where he deserves it..

Now, why don't you explain to me why, (his constantly exploding :Starship"), needs fins. On one hand I expect they will have thrusters mounted on them for directional control. However they by themselves will have no effect on the "aerodynamics", since the vehicle will be operating in zero gravity, and in an absence of atmosphere. I think he took at least part his inspiration from Commando Cody''s rocket ship: (**)

But what do I know, my clearer thoughts are probably "Obscured by Clouds"....., of envy. @sreams The quotes are there because "Obscured by Clouds", is a song title

There is one person on earth I loathe well in excess of my mere disdain for Musk, and that, "special someone", is Joel Osteen.

(**) Perhaps the fins are there because he didn't want to encroach on Jeff Bezo's phallic design. (however unlikely that may be)

OK, let's agree that US' defense contractors are all just about as corrupt as the Russian military, and have much deeper fangs into US defense spending. The only point unclear to me is if they are actually incompetent, or just milking it for all it's worth.

What a cute meme. Did it take you long to find it? It's a little presumptive, (actually wildly presumptive and quite rude).

No I'm not "jealous" of Musk, nor do I have a working knowledge of stock trading strategies. I'm adult enough to take responsibility for my own destiny. Musk's success has had no impact on my life whatsoever.

Musk's admirers and dare I say "groupies", always jump to the conclusion that if someone doesn't like the man. they must be jealous of him. I'd say that the inverse is more true. His admirers are probably repeating "I wish I was him, I wish was him" over and over and over, in private, while staring at his graven image.

I gave Musk all the credit he is due, in the areas where he deserves it..

Now, why don't you explain to me why, (his constantly exploding :Starship"), needs fins. On one hand I expect they will have thrusters mounted on them for directional control. However they by themselves will have no effect on the "aerodynamics", since the vehicle will be operating in zero gravity, and in an absence of atmosphere. I think he took at least part his inspiration from Commando Cody''s rocket ship: (**)

But what do I know, my clearer thoughts are probably "Obscured by Clouds"....., of envy. @sreams The quotes are there because "Obscured by Clouds", is a song title

There is one person on earth I loathe well in excess of my mere disdain for Musk, and that, "special someone", is Joel Osteen.

(**) Perhaps the fins are there because he didn't want to encroach on Jeff Bezo's phallic design. (however unlikely that may be)

Wow. You are pretty ignorant about a subject you have such a strong negative opinion about. The "fins" (they aren't fins) *are* there for aerodynamic reasons (re-entry and landing). They won't ever have thrusters on them. They aren't there to look cool. They are 100% functional and necessary to the reusability of the second stage.

Maybe spend just a couple minutes watching them function before commenting on things you don't understand.

 

[captaincranky]

Did I upset you to the point you felt it necessary to quote my same post twice? My bad. Sorry..But you know what they say, "ingorance is bliss".

In reality though thrusters would be more effective in space on the tips of the fins, Further from the center of mass would yield more control, with less power used.

Another point, "fins", are a slipshod and lazy way on my part, for describing what would more correctly be termed "rudder-vators" (A combined control surface affecting both pitch and yaw axis.. Oddly though, I don't see fins on Space-X Falcon booster. One has to assume they're thrust vectoring for the landing sequence. Of course I'm completely ignorant of all things aeronautical, maybe you could "help" me with that.

I tried to get you footage of the Starship booster explosion earlier this month.I couldn't find a condensed version of the incident, and I figured you wouldn't want to wade through 10 minutes of footage just to watch it go BOOM. Maybe Musk was trying to save a few bucks by using cheap Chinese fuel shutoff valves. But you know our man Elon, he says it will be up and running in a week. But wait, it will be 2 weeks tomorrow. He's sometimes overly optimistic when it comes to time frame

You'll have to settle for this print version: https://earthsky.org/space/spacex-assessing-damage-after-booster-7-explosion/

I'm sorry if I'm speaking out of turn here. But I've gotten the impression I'm not allowed to speak unless I'm directly responding to something you've said. I'll try to be a bit more submissive if it will make you happy.

 

[sreams]

The booster (both Falcon 9 and Starship) has enough extra fuel and doesn't re-enter at high enough velocities to need a way to slow down via aero drag. The craft with the fins/flaps is the second stage, which has never been a recoverable object with previous similar systems (even with Falcon 9). The Space Shuttle was almost that... but required so much refurbishment at such a high cost that the reusability factor didn't really yield much benefit.

The second stage is designed to get to orbital velocity (or faster, if traveling beyond orbit and returning), so anything that reduces velocity without using propellant is of huge benefit. The fins/flaps are used to increase drag during re-entry and to adjust trajectory without using propellant. After that, they are used for the belly-flop landing sequence, allowing for a much lower terminal velocity, and again keeping to a desired trajectory without using propellant.

I've seen the Starship prototype explosions (none were production), which are indicative of SpaceX's fast-paced development style. Falcon 9 also had several explosions early on. That system is now the most reliable, most reusable, and least expensive system of its kind.