Astronomical!

“The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5p. There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so that's 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each, that's £374.49 per MB - or about 4.4 times more expensive than the ‘most pessimistic’ estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs.” 

a Space Scientist at U. of Leicester

I cannot wait to see his analysis comparing mobile roaming charges to even further transmissions from NASA's Mars explorer, Spirit.

Comments

[Tapan Shah]

Two reasons for that:

1) Govt. would not charge high licensing fees to NASA for spectrum in SPACE :) :)

2) There is no branding in space research involved yet (LoL)