I really wish a reality show would focus on SpaceX and take us along for the ride so to speak. One way to really get kids excited about science again is bring things like this to the forefront-- show everyone it's an adventure, hard work and a ton of risk but ultimately leaving an indelible mark in history.
You could possibly pay for a mars (and certainly moon) mission just by doing a bunch of movies, reality shows, etc.
$5b incremental cost to do a moon mission, probably, for SpaceX in a few years. $10-20b to do Mars Direct. That's not incredibly far off from a major video game or movie franchise.
Sounds instead like they should consider contracting a video team to do episodes for a website, and to push on Hulu/DVD. Push themselves as a brand.
I could see it working. "SpaceX: Mission to the Moon". Then reedit it into a film when done, sell that with merchandise and begin the "SpaceX: Mission to Mars" series.
Zubrin, Mars Direct. He estimated $10-15b to do it, and if you were SpaceX, you could probably do it for less. The key to making Mars cheap is to do multiple launches -- first launch is a fuel production facility (automated) which uses Mars resources to make fuel and oxygen, then housing, then a return vehicle. Launch the crew once everything is set up, in a vehicle which can't return on its own -- they use the stuff already on Mars to live and return.
I mostly just made up the moon number, based on it being a whole lot easier than Mars. I think you could probably do a recreation of Apollo pretty cheaply (a quick flight to the moon, simple landing, etc.). Certainly a trip to the moon without landing wouldn't be THAT hard once you had a rocket able to escape from earth gravity (maybe 2x as hard as launching to GEO?). You could maybe do it with a Falcon 9 in a single launch, so that's about $2b. It's less fun if you don't land, though.
It should be called "James Cameron Goes to the Moon."
The movie is about James Cameron trying to go to the moon, but he is constantly sabotaged by the bad guy from Aliens. Ultimately, he succeeds and gets to the Moon. The last 30 minutes are just sweet, sweet HD shots of the moon, directed by James Cameron.
