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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 c
by dzdt 9y ago
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.
- api 9y agoSo basically they're just throwing a car into space.
- garmaine 9y agoYes.
- ogre_magi 9y agoInto deep space. This will be SpaceX's first flight beyond Earth orbit.
- grecy 9y agoIt will be the first commercial space flight beyond Earth orbit
- losteric 9y agoiirc, they are aiming for Mar's orbit... the general public just thinks that means orbiting Mars.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- apeace 9y ago> 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 9y agoThat'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]).
- zaroth 9y agoWait, 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?!