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?
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.
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.