Sure he’s crashing rockets here and hating on Mike Judge’s lack of Burning Man experience over here, but none of that means Elon Musk isn’t out there pushing for good things. His name is connected to a lot of ideas and inventions that usually carry the tag, “that’s cool, but wait to see where this goes,” and his latest is no different.
Using Space X as a launching pad, Musk is hoping to take the Internet into a faster realm by shooting it into outer space. Soon you might be downloading porn and perusing cat gifs at speeds that not even fiber can reach, all thanks to Musk’s satellite armada. From Bloomberg Businessweek:
“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 ahead of the announcement.
The Space Internet venture, to which Musk hasn’t yet given a name, would be hugely ambitious. Hundreds of satellites would orbit about 750 miles above earth, much closer than traditional communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit at altitudes of up to 22,000 miles. The lower satellites would make for a speedier Internet service, with less distance for electromagnetic signals to travel. The lag in current satellite systems makes applications such as Skype, online gaming, and other cloud-based services tough to use. Musk’s service would, in theory, rival fiber optic cables on land while also making the Internet available to remote and poor regions that don’t have access.
That surely is a frightening prospect for technophobes, but it was only a matter of time. Entrepreneur Greg Wyler announced a similar effort earlier in the week and surely someone else will come along and provide another, more horrible version at some point (looking at you Time Warner).
The big difference between the two ventures seems to be Musk’s vision and scope for the project. He isn’t just thinking about sharing the Internet with remote portions of the Earth, he’s ready to shoot a connection all the way to Mars:
Musk describes his system as “a giant global Internet service provider” for anyone. But he wants to go even bigger than that: He sees it as the basis for a system that will stretch all the way to Mars, where he plans to set up a colony in the coming decades. “It will be important for Mars to have a global communications network as well,” he says. “I think this needs to be done, and I don’t see anyone else doing it.”
Cooler heads would say, “hey, let’s just try to get back to the Moon first.” Not Musk, though. He’s already building cities on Martian soil and launching people there in tiny pods surrounding by their poop (at least that’s how I picture it).
Who knows if this is going to work out, but one day you might be sharing the latest viral cat video on the surface of Mars. Cat videos on Mars, who’d have thought it?
(Via Bloomberg Businessweek / Engadget)