Elon Musk Wants To Bring The Internet To Mars
This space network would be much faster than the internet we experience today, Musk said to Businessweek as a SpaceX event in Seattle Friday night.
The goal would be to bring low-cost high-speed internet to areas of the world with poor connections and improve global internet speeds in general.
The task would be costly - Bloomberg Businessweek reports that it could take $10 million to build this space network. It would require hundreds of satellites to orbit 750 miles above the Earth, which is low compared to the 22,000 mile altitudes most satellites achieve.
This would create internet speeds that are much faster, since Musk says the speed of light is 40% faster in the vacuum of space than it is for fiber.
But Musk isn't just envisioning an improved internet system for Earth. He hopes that this network will eventually be able to extend to Mars to connect future colonies on the planet to the web.
The project is still unnamed and its unclear exactly how long it would take to build. But Businessweek reports that the effort would be based in Seattle and is starting with 60 employees. That team may grow to 1,000 over the next three to four years.