The Olympics in Sochi are the most expensive ever, with costs upwards of $50 billion, a number that Mother Jones Magazine pointed out would be enough to fund 20 manned trips to Mars, which would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion.
However, The New York Times is reporting that a recently launched Indian probe to Mars set the bar even lower, with costs of only $75 million.
From the article…
Just days after the launch of India’s Mangalyaan satellite, NASA sent
off its own Mars mission, five years in the making, named Maven. Its
cost: $671 million. The budget of India’s Mars mission, by contrast, was
just three-quarters of the $100 million that Hollywood spent on last
year’s space-based hit, “Gravity.”
The Indian probe doesn’t have as many instruments as the American probe, but the approach to design and costs still shows a dramatic contrast between American and Indian efforts, and may offer renewed hope that even in times and places of frugality, space exploration is still possible.
Read the full story here.
