During those moments when the internet slows down to a crawl and we are faced with the spinning wheel of death we often look heavenward. The droughts and disease and famine are one thing all powerful and merciful being, but why must I wait two minutes for this YouTube clip to buffer?

Well Elon Musk is looking to offer an alternative to whatever internet you are using. It’s a rather radical idea so let’s the gist of it from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Elon Musk’s space company has asked the US government for permission to begin testing on an ambitious project to beam internet service from space, a significant step forward for an initiative that could create another major competitor to telecom companies.

The plan calls for launching a constellation of 4000 small and cheap satellites that will beam high-speed internet signals to all parts of the globe, including its most remote regions. Musk has said the effort “would be like rebuilding the internet in space.”

Yowzers, that sounds like a pretty ambitious project Mr. Musk, although he isn’t alone in this endeavour. Richard Branson has outlined a similar vision in the past and already partnered Virgin with another company called OneWeb to begin looking into the process.

This isn’t the only exciting plan that Musk and his company Space X have in store for us, and they’re not aiming small with this one either:

SpaceX’s main goal remains flying people to Mars, because in order to survive, Musk thinks, humans must become a “multi-planetary species.”

“Mars is going to need a global communications system, too…A lot of what we do developing Earth-based communications can be leveraged for Mars as well, as crazy as that may sound.”

We like that you’re thinking big Elon, even if the idea of inhabiting Mars seems like one I can’t imagine seeing in my lifetime.

[source:smh]