“I hope it makes it far enough away from the pad that it does not cause pad damage”.
WTF ? Why are we supporting this type of logic. Astronauts read this and say, not me.
The power plants are solid. The Merlin 1D engines are an engineering marvel and a solid win in the column for US space superiority. All they've done is strap three cores together and done the math. All signs point to this being a success.
Elon is simply hedging, and there are no contract payloads or human beings being sent up on the the maiden voyage; just Elon's Tesla roadster. If it succeeds or fails, they'll have tomes of data to pore over before the next flight, and that flight will likely consist of contract payloads, not humans.
The Falcon Heavy and BFR are man-rated. That doesn't mean they're only sending human beings. It means that they could.
SpaceX and Blue Horizons doing what they're doing, regardless of financial backing, is nothing but good for America. The Russians are consistently suffering setbacks with their space program due to mechanical or human errors while America is reemerging as the preeminent standard-bearer for space flight.
I wish Elon and Bezos nothing but the best of luck in their endeavors. I hope to one day take a trip around the moon, and they may be the ones to send me there.