Popeidol writes:
"In November, India took the next step in their space program by launching their Mangalyaan Mars orbiter. The orbiter won't arrive for a while yet, but they've managed to get some public attention for a different reason: the fact that the entire mission costs only 75 million dollars, substantially less than the budget for the hit movie 'Gravity.'
While the question of wages is bound to come up (it was only 15% of the budget of the project), I think we can all agree that bringing down the cost of interplanetary space travel to a level attainable by the ultra-rich is a good step forward."
(Score: 5, Informative) by mattie_p on Tuesday February 18 2014, @06:25PM
As one of the editors of this piece, I took it to mean that the ultra-rich could sponsor their own private space ventures. But I could be wrong, and didn't want to change the thought of the author too much from the original.
(Score: 1) by Quicksilver on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:23PM
I guess the point is that you can get price down "to a level attainable by the ultra-rich" if part of your strategy is to get woefully underpaid third world labor to do the brunt of the work for you...