Multiplanetary civilisation?

January 17, 2020 | Reading Time: 4 min

Elon Musk recently tweeted about the logistics requirements for a Multiplanetary civilisation. He says that at a minimum, megatons of equipment and other resources have to be put in orbit every year. For reference, a Saturn V (the launch vehicle used to send humans to the moon), can take a payload of around 140 tons to Low Earth Orbit. A launch of Saturn V costs $1.23 billion (in 2019 value). To reach the goal of a megaton per year there would have to be more than 7000 launches per year, or 20 launches per day! That would cost $8.8 trillion(!). But of course, technology has come a long way since 1969.