So, I am not even sure what to say here...

The Falcon Heavy's maiden flight launch date is getting closer and closer, despite severe delays - Elon Musk's optimistic timelines are not a secret, the Falcon Heavy was initially projected to launch by 2013 - and once again, Musk tweeted an announcement for the launch. I believe we may realistically expect it to happen in January or February.

But this is where the fun begins! The first flight will be a test, and considered unlikely to actually reach orbit. So Elon Musk announced it would launch a "silly payload". Turns out, he was serious about that - the payload will literally be a car, and it will be sent to Mars.

So... without further comment. What do you guys think?

I only want to see NASCAR become an thing on Mars.

Wasting millions to put a useless piece of metal on mars? Sounds fun!

It will not actually land - entry into Mars is an extremely complicated part in itself. They will just allow it to fly through space and crash onto unsuspecting alien tourists.

What a waste of money!

From what I've heard, he wanted to put it in a high orbit around mars, not actually landing it, as that would be much more complex, and would surely anger some planet people.
The thing is, virtually no company wants to buy the 1st ever launch of a falcon-heavy because as stated above, the odds of even getting anywhere are relatively low. This is why they can afford to do something silly with it. It's more a full-scale test, than an actual first launch... As to whether or not SpaceX intends to follow through and actually send a tesla to mars, and whether or not it will actually make it there, is still unknown. But I believe the window to send things to mars (which opens up every 26 months) is coming up.

And if they miss that deadline, the next window falls in mid-2020, and at that point, the falcon-heavy should no longer be in such an early stage, so it would be unlikely that sending a car at that point would still be reasonable. Therefore, If we don't have a tesla on it's way to mars around spring time next year, we probably never will. As for performing a transfer outside of a Hohman transfer window, the delta-v losses are so large that it is very unlikely that SpaceX would go that route.

Well, the point is to prove that the rocket can do what it is supposed to do, so no matter the payload, it will still prove a point

https://youtu.be/Ja1eeVBKTUE?t=1056

Botboy, would you mind adding more to your post? Maybe just explaining the relevance of the video?



Despite the jk emote, it's a pretty smart campaign. It got featured on news sites, has a topic here, and got thousands of people talking about about it. Without Elon's announcement about a Tesla being the first payload, we wouldn't have had any press on the matter and it just would've been another news blip leading up to the launch.

Generates a lot of buzz. SpaceX gets press. If it's successful, they get a lot of business inquiries.

Oh yeah, that was the other point I forgot to make. Announcements of weird, ambitious goals when you actually have the money to fulfill them does tend to produce quite the media sensation.

SpaceX is garbage.

If only he practiced what he preached



Why do you consider SpaceX garbage? You could certainly add a lot more to this conversation if you provided reasons to support your opinion.