Roadster in Space

 "That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason." - Zeno of Citium

 The opening scene of the 1981 movie "Heavy Metal" is forever etched in my brain.  You get treated to the song "Radar Rider" by Riggs, as a 1960 Corvette exits the cargo bay of a space shuttle, re-enters the atmosphere, and soft-lands on a road.  It's a brief segment (below), but I've not ever forgotten it.

Neither has Elon Musk, apparently.  He staged the real deal in orbit (minus the soft landing) with a Tesla Roadster and "Starman", a mannequin strapped into the car in a space suit.

The "Don't Panic" is an homage to Douglas Adams' book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", possibly one of the most-quoted and popular science fiction books ever.

After a few orbits and some great GoPro footage, the booster fired, with the intent of sending the Tesla roadster out into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.  Alas, the booster went off-course.  The Tesla ended up in an elongated orbit where the furthest point will take it beyond the orbit of Mars, but not quite to the asteroid belt, then it will fall back to its original launch point, the orbit of earth, and keep on doing that until something affects the orbit.  The earth won't be at that location when it returns.

Someone was awesome enough to calculate the orbit the Tesla is in, so you can see where it is in real-time or do a playback from launch far into the future.

Below is an image from the website, showing where the Tesla is in relation to the sun and inner planets.

 Better yet, you can visit the site here and play with the orbits a little bit.  Do it fullscreen and it's pretty nice looking.

Looks like the Tesla's orbit and Earth's orbit get close in 2044, and a bit closer in 2047.

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