Letter To Mars?

The Royal Mail took the extra mile to get the answer for a five-year-old boy who wanted to send a Christmas card to Mars.

16:39 04 December 2015

Five-year-old Oliver Giddings, an aspiring astronaut, was wondering how much would it cost him to send a Christmas card to Mars. The Royal Mail was determined to find the answer and enlisted the help of NASA.

 

Oliver received a letter from Royal Mail explaining that it would cost about £11,602.25 as the distance between Mars and Earth is 568 million km. It also took into consideration the cost of rocket fuel.

 

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: "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.