11k to send a xmas card to Mars

[POSTMAN]

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How much to send a Christmas card to Mars? Royal Mail's brilliant reply to boy's question

The Royal Mail were determined to find an answer for little Oliver Giddings and enlisted the help of NASA

A wannabe astronaut who wanted to send a Christmas card to Mars but was worried he did not have enough money for stamps has received an out of this world response from the postal service.

Five-year-old Oliver Giddings had bosses at Royal Mail scratching their heads when he penned his unusual request.

But the company were determined to find an answer and enlisted the help of the NASA Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, USA, to get it.

Oliver received his own note back from Royal Mail which laid out that taking into account the weight of his letter, the 567 million km distance from Mars to the earth and the cost of rocket fuel, sending such a correspondence would set the youngster back a cool £11,602.25.

That's the equivalent of 18,416 first class stamps or 21,466 second class stamps.

Oliver, who lives with mum Melanie Giddings, dad Mike and eight-year-old brother William in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, said: "Wow! That's a lot of money. Thank you Royal Mail for working out the answer, I enjoyed reading it.

"It's very expensive to send a letter to Mars. You would need so many stamps!"

Andrew Smout, senior customer advisor at Royal Mail, said his team spoke to NASA's Mars outreach unit to come up with a total.

NASA worked out it would cost about £12,000, to fly a letter weighing up to 100g to Mars.

Andrew's total, which he sent back to Oliver in a letter, also included the £2.25 it would cost for Royal Mail's international team to send the envelope to NASA's launch site.

The last NASA visit to Mars, when the Curiosity Rover set off for the red planet in November 2011 as part of a science mission, cost £465million in total.

Andrew said: "The team reached a conclusion about the price and decided that, if you wanted to send a normal letter to someone living on Mars, it would cost £11,602.25

"That's 18,416 first class stamps or 21,466 second class stamps.

"We always like to answer every query we get from our customers. This one took a bit longer but we enjoyed the journey to find out!"

Mum Mel said: "Oliver has always been an inquisitive little boy and is very keen on anything to do with space, stars and planets.

"He was so excited to get such a great letter back from Royal Mail."

[rhino49]

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So he won't be sending any of these then ?

[pinstripe]

Imagine the lucky postie that gets that added to his lapsing.

[daveyeff]

they forgot to include the two years overtime for the journey.

[daveyeff]

or the extra 6 months overtime for delivery to neighbour Jupiter if no ones in on Mars

[Lounge Lizard]

Isn't that 300 miles per penny, or 30,000 miles per £1 A bargain.

[Darren Bent]

Imagine the line manager's face when you are away for 9 months to deliver this only letter ;) Budget will hit the roof.