Elon Musk is behind many innovations--Pay Pal, SpaceX, and Tesla--but his newest internet project is on an even larger scale. Its ambitious plan, with more ambitious goals.
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Musk is seeking to create an internet source in space based on hundreds of orbital satellites, which would provide fast, affordable access to the web across the globe. Furthermore, as Bloomberg reports, the billionaire wants the project to work as the communication method with a planned Mars colony.
The satellites would generally speed up internet movement across the planet, which benefits everyone. Crucially, though, it would be the best option for the billions of people still without reliable or affordable (or any) access to the web.
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"Our focus is on creating a global communications system that would be larger than anything that has been talked about to date," Musk told Bloomberg Businessweek before the project was announced.
The project would cost about $15 billion and place the satellites 750 miles above Earth--much closer than current orbital satellites. It may seem like internet from space couldn't possibly be as fast as fiber optic cables on the ground, but that is in fact the case.
"The speed of light is 40 percent faster in the vacuum of space than it is for fiber," Musk told Bloomberg. "The long-term potential is to be the primary means of long-distance internet traffic and to serve people in sparsely populated areas."
The internet network would skip the multiple router and cable transfers, and instead send data packets straight to the satellites and then to their destinations. Musk said that the project would be based out of a Seattle office, with about 60 starting employees growing potentially to 1,000 over the next three or four years. SpaceX's rockets and capsules would be used to carry equipment and people into space.
The satellites would additionally serve as the communication network with the Mars colony Musk eventually plans to form. He says that nobody else is prioritizing either area, and feels it's important to do so. It will be years until the first satellites are ready, but Musk is set on making this a reality.