$70B - What Apple could do.
If Apple really wants to push technology to its limits, then why not go after the biggest market that is to come: The Space Elevator.
For Apple, the cost of building this elevator to space is like a penny. It would cost 5 billion pounds, which is roughly 8.08 billion USD. For R&D, we're looking around (guesstimate) 10 ~ 20 billion. So, after all is said and done, Apple would still have $35 billion.
Space Elevator Generations: (Timeline; not actual "generations")
1st Generation:
Sending shipments up.
"Cleaning" our air space up there
2nd Generation:
Building Space resorts and Hotels
3 Generation:
Hotels / Resorts open to the public.
This is where Apple's ROI (return on investment) would start flowing in. First the Rich would only be able to afford Space hotels... Then as R&D is slowly paid off, the price would come down to a point where we could afford a room up there.
This is most likely a dream that will never happen. (Apple building the Space Elevator). The Space Elevator is coming, even if Apple by chance doesn't take on the challenge.
Source for price: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle4799369.ece
For Apple, the cost of building this elevator to space is like a penny. It would cost 5 billion pounds, which is roughly 8.08 billion USD. For R&D, we're looking around (guesstimate) 10 ~ 20 billion. So, after all is said and done, Apple would still have $35 billion.
Space Elevator Generations: (Timeline; not actual "generations")
1st Generation:
Sending shipments up.
"Cleaning" our air space up there
2nd Generation:
Building Space resorts and Hotels
3 Generation:
Hotels / Resorts open to the public.
This is where Apple's ROI (return on investment) would start flowing in. First the Rich would only be able to afford Space hotels... Then as R&D is slowly paid off, the price would come down to a point where we could afford a room up there.
This is most likely a dream that will never happen. (Apple building the Space Elevator). The Space Elevator is coming, even if Apple by chance doesn't take on the challenge.
Source for price: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle4799369.ece
Comments
Sales? Nope. Nada. Apple sells computers. Not space elevators.
And you're not factoring in the trillions in cleanup costs. Every single piece of everything larger than sixteen cubic inches would have to be removed from all orbits below the Clarke limit. Everything. Okay, the ISS can have course corrections to never hit it. Not the point. Everything else has to go.
How much do you expect it to cost to tug an asteroid into higher-than-Geo to stabilize this thing? That's even more.
Read The Fountains Of Paradise. It doesn't talk about cost, but it does talk about the mechanics of how a space elevator would have to be built, how testing would have to happen, cleanup, all that jazz.
Not to mention that humanity doesn't have a material strong enough to serve as a tether yet.
Or, $50 billion into solar panel research could give us cost-competitive solar within 10 years.
Which does... what for Apple? Nothing. Publicity? Sure. A place in the annals of human history for all eternity? Yep.
Sales? Nope. Nada. Apple sells computers. Not space elevators.
And you're not factoring in the trillions in cleanup costs. Every single piece of everything larger than sixteen cubic inches would have to be removed from all orbits below the Clarke limit. Everything. Okay, the ISS can have course corrections to never hit it. Not the point. Everything else has to go.
How much do you expect it to cost to tug an asteroid into higher-than-Geo to stabilize this thing? That's even more.
Read The Fountains Of Paradise. It doesn't talk about cost, but it does talk about the mechanics of how a space elevator would have to be built, how testing would have to happen, cleanup, all that jazz.
Not to mention that humanity doesn't have a material strong enough to serve as a tether yet.
Despite the problems presented, a space elevator is possible by 2060. It will cost a few hundred billion USD though.
Also they need to figure out how to clear all the space junk (present and resulting from the space elevator) or prevent all this junk from happening. And they need to start figuring out how to shield satellites and spaceships from micrometeorites and space junk.
If you go to the moon, it'll be interesting for a short time but you'll get bored. The only ever manned mission to the moon's surface spent 21.5 hours there and then they came home and nobody's been back since. There's just nothing to do.
Battery technology on the other hand has an impact everywhere. The biggest improvement necessary is in transportation.
Think of how a vehicle is designed right now - you have a very complex combustion engine with engine timing, fuel/air mixtures, cooling etc and you need to spend about 10-15 minutes filling up with fuel that has to be sourced directly from limited natural resources, which expels noxious fumes as a by-product.
An electric vehicle has a battery and a motor - very simple and zero emissions. The only problem is it needs around a 50kWh power source, which is quite large and heavy because it uses a certain material with a particular energy density. What is needed is either a battery technology that uses material with a higher energy density or a design like a fuel cell that generates electricity by reacting with air/water (preferably air if it's to mix with electronics).
The power required for a car is 1000 times a laptop battery. Now imagine that we get a safe material with an energy density 1000 times what we have in the same space. You likely wouldn't charge these yourself but you could simply have a depot that does a battery exchange. Your car would have two battery slots the size of a laptop battery. You drive in and pull out the depleted one and exchange it over the counter in seconds. All mobile devices could be fitted with 3 year batteries, no user-end charging required.
What was said about the journey to the moon applies to every great advance we make:
"We meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. This country was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward.
'All great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties'. Man in his quest for knowledge and progress is determined and cannot be deterred. Our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries; to solve them for the good of all men. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard."
We've been to the moon, now we need to do the other things.