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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."
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India Goes to Mars for Less Than 'Gravity's' Budget
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by dr_zaius on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:45AM
Once SpaceX can demonstrate a reusable first stage (perhaps later this year) and then later a reusable second stage the potential costs for similar missions could fall even more dramatically. I would love to see the price point fall to where a university or consortium of universities could afford to launch scientific missions into the solar system. Currently, just the launch cost to Mars can be $200M or more. If the cost can be lowered to the $5M to $10M range, think of how much more can be done.