I’m amazed at how far ahead of my time I am. Like twelve hours ahead. Last night, I was watching season 2 of the wonderful History Channel series, The Universe. (Watching instantly off of Netflix on my brand spankin’ new 42 inch plasma is one life’s greatest pleasures.) In the eighth episode entitled Space Travel, Michio Kaku, only my favorite theoretical physicist and one of the most influential popularizes of science since Mr. Sagan himself, clearly states the reason why we are stuck in LEO. Why we haven’t gone back to Luna in nearly 40 years and why Mars is still science fiction.
“There’s a dirty four letter word. That is, ‘cost’. It costs about $10,000 to put a pound of anything into orbit. It would cost about 20 million dollars for you to take a weekend trip up to the space station. It would cost about a half billion for you to go to the Moon. And for you to go to Mars would probably cost tens of billions of dollars.”
This is nothing new. Dr. Kaku is not saying anything we didn’t know before. But watching The Universe last night got me thinking. Ehhh, that’s not that much. $500 million to get back to the Moon? I got this.
I have an idea! The room lit up with the eco-friendly florecsent light bulb now hovering above my head. Let’s crowdsource it. Sure it’s a lot for the government. They can’t go spending billions of dollars all willy nilly just because I think it’s cool and important. Though they really should. C’mon government.
I’m over-simplifying, but here’s what we’re gonna do. Have the government come up with a budget for getting back to the Moon. Then we’ll take pledges from rich dreamers, SF nerds, and really smart people. You don’t have to give me 2 million dollars. Just pledge it. If we reach our goal, then you give me 2 million dollars. Simple right. I walk into NASA with slicked back hair and a briefcase handcuffed to my wrist with $500 million in it and we go to the Moon. Cutting edge thinking!
This morning, 12 hours later, I happened upon the msnbc homepage and right there in the middle of the page is a link to a story called Billionaires Wanted for Starship Plan. They want to send multi-generational ships on a one-way journey to the stars. A little bit more ambitious than what I had in mind, but it’s the same idea. Get rich people to pay for it. The super wealthy are always concerned with legacy. This is definitely one way for your legacy to live on.
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