this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Going to Mars hasn't been intangible since the 90s. The only thing holding it back is the cost. NASA could absolutely go if they had a $200B budget... mostly because they don't spend their money wisely and waste shitloads on contracts with Boeing. They SHOULD be able to go to Mars with a $50B/year budget (current budget is in the $25B range), but government contracts are horrific.
A private company should be able to do it with $100B total price. But who wants to spend all that money?
Musk? Bezos? Branson? Any other billionaire with a space fantasy?
Yes, they are spending a lot of money on space, but they haven't dumped the necessary money to go to Mars (yet). Bezos spends about $1B of his own money every year on Blue Origin, which is a far cry from $100B. Musk has probably spent a few billion of his own money total, because he has a ton of contracts to actually make money that is being put back into SpaceX. And their entire program (Starlink, Falcon, etc) is around $78B, as opposed to $100B for just Mars. Branson has stated publicly he is no longer spending more money on Virgin Galactic.