[dzdt]

They aren't aiming for Mars orbit. As far as I can tell, they aren't even aiming to come close to Mars. Instead (as far as I can tell) they are aiming to come close to the orbit of Mars, i.e. where Mars will be in 4 or 5 months.

[zaroth]

Wait, wait wait. If they aren't putting the Tesla into actual orbit, then what about--50 years from now--when they run into a situation on Mars Base Alpha where the only possible solution to an imminent cascading system failure is to dock with the orbiting Roadster and harvest a crucial part from the drivetrain in order to repair their reactor and save the base?!

[apeace]

> Following launch, Falcon Heavy’s second stage will attempt to place the Roadster into a precessing Earth-Mars elliptical orbit around the sun.

[ogre_magi]

That's not Mars orbit. It's an orbit around the sun with perihelion ~1AU (distance the Earth orbits) and aphelion ~1.5AU (distance Mars orbits [avg]).

[api]

So basically they're just throwing a car into space.

[ogre_magi]

Into deep space. This will be SpaceX's first flight beyond Earth orbit.

[grecy]

It will be the first commercial space flight beyond Earth orbit

[losteric]

iirc, they are aiming for Mar's orbit... the general public just thinks that means orbiting Mars.

[garmaine]

Yes.