Anyone who has ever read up on Elon Musk will know that he is as ambitious as billionaire entrepreneurs tend to be but not many share his fascination with space. Musk runs a company called SpaceX that was awarded a contract back in September 2014 to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station starting in 2017. He has mentioned plans of building a city on Mars many times and now Musk has detailed just how he plans on funding this ambitious endeavor.
It was back in November last year when Elon Musk touched upon the idea of providing internet access around the world through a network of 700 satellites. He has described the idea in detail at an invite-only event in Seattle Center.
Musk is aiming to launch 4,000 geosynchronous satellites which will provide high-speed internet access across the globe. SpaceX’s engineers will design and develop these satellites which will orbit 750 miles above the Earth.
One of the biggest advantages of this system will be the speed that internet data packets could travel with from one satellite to the other as they wouldn’t be tied to terrestrial networks. Musk puts the production cost for each satellite at under $1 million and weight under 250 pounds.
The SpaceX CEO says that it would take five years at the very least for this network to be built and that the cost could be as much as $10 billion. When its up and running though Musk sees it as a long term potential revenue source to fund that city on the Red Planet.