That's about Google's entire revenue for 2020. I don't think even Google could put a man on the moon at those rates. Literal moonshots are expensive.
So it wouldn't be insubstantial, but they could fund a similar effort if they really wanted to. Shareholders would have a thing or two to say about that though, which is why Elon Musk is keeping SpaceX private.
Yes, if it were possible to go from zero to moon in one year then that would be all of Google revenue. But spread over 10 years that's just 10% per year.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apollo-11-moon-landing-how-much...
as a percentage of the yearly federal budget, it's not that extreme.
I believe the DoD budget (entirely non-NASA) is presently running around 700 billion a year.
some very quick searching tells me the total federal budget is something like 3500 billion a year. 4.4% of that would be 154bn a year.
Uh... don't count your Mars shots before they're hatched. Even getting robot probes to Mars is very very hard. Only about half of Mars missions have been successful. In fact, since the fall of the Soviet Union only one organisation has succeeded in putting working probes on the Martian surface: NASA/JPL.
I don't think it's impossible that SpaceX will get there, but certainly not soon and not for "a few billion". If they succeed at all, it will require drawing on years on investment and expertise by NASA.
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/missions/historical-l...
And SpaceX will soon have the capability to do it with zillion times less. Seems like if you really want to make it possible, you can.
I prefer to think of a moonshot as longer than a longshot, whatever that might be worth.
It sure is sad though, coming from the acquisition before Google X that had just so many great players throughout.
