The cost of living on the Moon (and Mars!)

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by the people at NeomamStudios, telling me about a graphic they had put together showing the total cost of living on the Moon.  This was part of the 45th Moon Landing Anniversary Celebration and is, I think, of interest to people who support the idea of a Space Elevator.

If you are like me, and believe that the major (or at least “a” major) use of the Space Elevator is to help us colonize the solar system and, to paraphrase Robert Heinlein, get some of our eggs out of earth’s “basket”, then numbers like this are what we need to make our case.  It will be very, very, very, very expensive to create and support a lunar colony using traditional rocket technology, there’s just no getting around it.  A space elevator is the only feasible way to do something like this.

I could have reproduced the entire graphic here, but it’s quite large and I’d rather link to one which is already out there.  I went to the Neomam web site and the graphic is there, so I’ve linked to it and reproduced just a portion of it here.  And, lo and behold, when I went to their website, I found they had also created a graphic showing numbers for the living costs on Mars.  I’ve also reproduced a portion of that graphic here and clicking on either one of them will take you to the Neoman website where you can see the full graphics.

Fun facts from the graphics:

  • On Mars, it would cost $37,244 to watch Psy’s Gangnam Style in HD on YouTube.
  • On the Moon, downloading “Fly me to the Moon” would cost about 12.8 cents.