Did you guys know that Facebook has their own space program? Nowadays, it seems like
every mega billionaire has their eyes on space. Zuckerberg has actually been in the space
scene for a decent amount of time now having started Facebook’s space program in 2014.
But unfortunately, like Blue Origin, it doesn’t seem like Zuckerberg has much to show after
several years of work. So, what happened to Zuckerberg’s space program? Well, unlike
the traditional space companies that we are used to, it doesn’t seem like Facebook has
any ambitions to actually build and launch a rocket themselves. Facebook is more focused
on what can be accomplished using rockets as opposed to the rockets themselves. This
focus has led to three primary projects which are a drone based internet service, a satellite
based internet service, and a space probe capable of traveling at 1/5th the speed of
light. Starting with the drone based internet service, Facebook initially announced this
project in 2014 in conjunction with their new connectivity lab. The connectivity lab
was created by hiring ex nasa and ascenta employees, and the lab was tasked with working
on the internet.org project. This project was a partnership between 7 major corporations
including Facebook, Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, and Qualcomm. The goal of the
project was to bring affordable internet access to the 5 billion people around the world who
didn’t have it at the time. Each company in the partnership had a specific role within
the project. The smartphone companies had the task of implementing special antennas
into their smartphones that could access the new internet service. The other tech companies
had the role of improving data compression by making it cheaper and more efficient. And
Facebook had the role of designing and launching the internet drones themselves. This internet.org
project was eerily similar to Google’s Project Loon. The only difference between the two
projects is that Facebook proposed to use drones while Google proposed to use a network
of balloons. Both of these solutions sound super cool in theory, but they also seem super
impractical and pointless. Why were these companies messing with drones and balloons
when they could just launch satellites to provide internet service? Satellites can leverage
the gravitational force of the earth to basically infinitely orbit around the earth with no
effort from the satellite. Drones on the other hand have to constantly rotate their blades
to maintain altitude. While the latter option is a much more inefficient solution, it shines
in two areas which are cost and accessibility. Launching satellites is extremely expensive.
Even for SpaceX, each satellite ends up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not to mention
the cost of the rocket launch. Meanwhile, flying drones will likely only cost thousands
of dollars each. If anything, it might cost tens of thousands which is still only a fraction
of the cost of launching a satellite. Aside from being much cheaper, the internet service
offered by the drone network will be accessible by significantly more devices. Nowadays, smartphones
are the easiest and cheapest way to access the internet. Because of this, entry level
internet users especially in third world countries are much more likely to have a smartphone
than a computer. So, providing mobile internet service is more effective than broadband service
when trying to reach individuals with no internet access. And, here’s the thing, even the
top flagship phones do not have the ability to communicate with satellites in space. So,
it would be foolish to think that people in 3rd world countries have smartphones that
can access satellite internet. Considering all of this, the reason facebook was launching
drones instead of satellites is because drone based internet would provide internet that
is much cheaper and much more accessible to the lowest tier of internet users. Unfortunately
though, this ambition wouldn't quite pan out. In the summer of 2016, Facebook would conduct
the first flight test of their solar powered drone. This test was actually a massive success
and was quite promising. The test flight was only supposed to last 30 minutes, but it would
end up flying for 90 minutes. Now, the goal was to have the drone eventually fly 90 days
at a time, but this was a great start. The same cannot be said about the landing though.
A strong gust of wind combined with software issues would lead to one of the wings scraping
on the ground and a 20 foot section breaking off. Facebook would end up correcting this
mistake in their second test flight, which nailed the landing. But for some reason, Facebook
would decide to scrap the drone altogether and shut down their manufacturing plant in
2018. This doesn't mean that Facebook gave up on drone based internet though. They simply
ditched trying to make their own drone. Instead, they would partner with Airbus in November
of 2017. Since then, we have heard about a couple of test flights here and there, but
aside from that, there really hasn’t been many progress updates. It’s assumed that
the companies are perfecting the drone and if things go well, we could see a beta roll
out within the next couple of years. Moving on, we have Facebook’s plans with satellite
internet. This sector really needs no explanation. With satellite internet, Facebook is looking
to provide broadband internet service to second tier internet users. These people usually
already have broadband internet or at least mobile internet. But, their connection isn’t
the best, so Facebook along with SpaceX, Blue Origin, and OneWeb are looking to provide
cheaper, faster, and more reliable internet access to these people. Since Facebook doesn’t
have launch capability though, they have to rely on rocket companies to launch their satellites.
Ironically, one of their first satellite launches was in conjunction with SpaceX, and this launch
happened to be one of SpaceX’s only failures. Since then though, Facebook has successfully
built up a constellation of 53 small satellites, and they hope to launch a broadband service
in the imminent future. I’m not too sure how successful such a service will be though.
Facebook will likely have a tough time matching the prices offered by Starlink since they
don’t launch their own satellites. Facebook also doesn’t have a massive subscriber base
that they can leverage. For instance, it looks like Jeff Bezos and Amazon will be late to
the satellite game, but when they do enter, it looks like they're positioned to become
the second largest satellite internet provider. Not only would Jeff Bezos have launch capability
with Blue Origin, but he can also leverage his massive prime subscriber base. I feel
like people would either just go with SpaceX to support their mission or just go with Amazon
because it’s convenient. So, I’m not quite sure why someone would choose Facebook or
oneweb over the competition. But that’s just what I think, let me know if you guys
disagree. Anyway, that brings us into Facebook’s final and likely their most exciting project
called Breakthrough Starshot. Zuckerberg founded this project in April of 2016 with Stephen
Hawking and russian billionaire yuri milner. The goal of the project is to send probes
to planets with liquid water. Planets with liquid water are often called Goldilocks Zone
Planets because the fact that the water is liquid proves that the planet is not too cold
or too hot. According to Zuckerberg, planets that don’t have liquid water aren’t that
useful for human inhabitation. He previously wrote quote “Mars has no water, so it would
be difficult to ever live there." Elon Musk and his fans would likely disagree with this
notion, but it is true that terraforming Mars into an Earth like planet would take thousands
and thousands of years. Zuckerberg claims that "It's quite possible the closest planet
that humans could actually live on is orbiting Alpha Centauri, and the only way to know that
for sure is to visit close enough to photograph the planet, which is what this project will
do." The only problem with this idea is that alpha centauri is 4.3 light years away or
about 25 trillion miles away. Even if we use the fastest spacecrafts we have today, it
would take 30,000 years to get there according to Zuckerberg. But, one of the main reasons
for such a long travel time is the large mass of the spacecraft. Newton’s basic second
law states that force equals mass times acceleration. So, if you decrease the mass substantially,
you can significantly increase the acceleration and get much closer to the speed of light.
And this is precisely what Zuckerberg plans to do. Advancing technology has made it possible
to manufacture extremely small cameras and sensors. And Zuckerberg wants to build nanoprobes
called nanocraft. As the name suggests, a nanoprobe is an optical device that measures
as little as just 100 nm in length. To put that in perspective, you could fit 100 million
nanoprobes within a single square millimeter. Now, it’s unlikely that Zuckerberg’s nanocraft
will be that small, but that gives you a reference as to how small nanoprobes can get. Given
the extremely small mass of such devices, Zuckerberg is hoping to launch these probes
using a laser beam that will launch these probes at ⅕ of the speed of light. That’s
the same as about 134 million miles per hour or 60 million meters per second. Even at that
speed though, it’s going to take quite a bit of time to actually reach Alpha Centauri.
Zuckerberg expects that his nanocraft can reach Alpha Centauri within 20 years after
launch. And once there, the nanocraft should be able to identify any signs of liquid water
and extraterrestrial life on the planet. At the end of the day, it’s no question that
space is the next big venue of growth, so it’s not surprising that billionaires are
crowding into the space. So far, Zuckerberg has been working with Airbus to deploy cheap
mobile internet world wide and rocket companies to deploy cheap broadband internet worldwide.
Aside from this, Zuckerberg is determined to find the closest signs of liquid water
and alien life with his nanocraft. Despite the setbacks in all of these projects, Zuckerberg
has continued to persist forward. But only time will tell which one of these endeavors
if any will evolve into something much bigger. Do you guys think Zuckerberg has a real chance?
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