“The British Royal Mail” has requested help from the US Agency for Space Studies (NASA) after received a question from five-year-old boy how much it would cost to send a letter to Mars. The boy, Oliver Giddings probably won’t be able to send a letter in deep space because the price of £11,602.25 (about $17,540) certainly far exceeds his allowance. The Royal Mail explained to Oliver, who wants to become an astronaut, that “fuel is very expensive,” and that “it affects the cost of sending letters around our planet.”
“NASA also told me that their last visit to Mars, carrying the Curiosity rover, cost about $US700 million ($950 million). The spaceship itself is very small so storage is at a premium. Based on how much the spaceship weighed compared to how much it costs to get to Mars, they said that something weighing up to 100 grams would cost them approximately $US18,000 to fly to Mars.”
The Royal Mail added that the price of the letter would be covered by 18,416 first class stamps.
Oliver, who lives in the northwest of England, wrote back to Royal Mail thanking them for their reply. “It’s very expensive to send a letter to Mars. You would need so many stamps!”