Netflix on Mars? Hulu on Pluto? Amazon in Andromeda? It Might Not Be Impossible

Think about this for a second.

You’re an astronaut traveling to Mars on a convoy mission to bring supplies to the crew already there. But these aren’t any supplies, it’s equipment to bolster the internet connectivity on the distant planet to help with research, data storage and… Netflix?

That’s right folks, an article today in Popular Mechanics discussed just how close to a reality this will actually be as humankind looks to progress into outer space, establishing bases on new planets. By the time we’re setting up shop on places like Mars, internet connectivity could just be good enough to allow the transmission of the most recent season of ‘House of Cards.’

From the article:

“The Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer orbiter uploaded and downloaded data from a rover on the moon’s surface at a rate of 622 kbps and 20 kbps, respectively. To put that in perspective, the average internet connection speed in the US is about 12,000 kbps and the download speed needed to stream Netflix in HD is about 500 kbps.”

So does this mean we’ll eventually be streaming Hulu and Amazon off into distant galaxies as well? Not so fast. The furthest transmitted data has been minuscule in size relative in comparison to an episode of ‘The Mindy Project.’ But progress is progress, no denying that.

And obviously while we’re excited about the potential to watch the 33rd season of ‘Orange is the New Black’ on Mars with our grandchildren, we’re also pretty sure resources will likely be dedicated to other endeavors before television entertainment makes a strong case for itself on alien planets.