Falcon Heavy Demo Launch Simulation in KSP

[Kramer]

I was intrigued with Elon Musk's tweet about launching his Tesla Roadster to the "orbit of mars". I had RSS setup in KSP and decided to simulate such a launch using Shadowmage's SSTU mod to make a Falcon Heavy and a demo payload. I proved to myself that such a mission was possible. I made a video of the result using camera tools: Falcon Heavy Demo Mission Simulation in KSP.

Can't wait for the real life launch!

[Zeiss Ikon]

Now that "billion years" Elon spoke of makes a lot more sense.  His car is going to wind up on an orbit that avoids the main Asteroid Belt, crosses the orbits of Earth and Mars -- and if it doesn't wind up with too close an encounter with one or the other (possible, after the Mars encounter), and doesn't collide with some random rock, it might still be not just recoverable, but restorable whenever someone finds it worth his time and delta-V to go retrieve it.

[Kramer]

Yeah, I see a new rescue mission for KSP: rescue Elon's roadster from the orbit of Kerbol :*)

It remains to be seen what orbit they actually do place it in. If the car has no cameras and antenna then a mars fly-by would not have much value other than for talking points.