Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Tuesday February 18 2014, @05:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the Applied-SiddhÄnta dept.

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."

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by quacking duck on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:55PM

    by quacking duck (1395) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:55PM (#2493)

    I prefer cooperation to competition.

    To be fair, it was international competition and politics, not cooperation, that got people into space and landed them on the moon. Obviously you need some level of cooperation within a large enough entity to make it work (e.g. large contractors within the US building different parts of the project), and cooperation has resulted in things like the ISS, but competitive tribalism drives people emotionally in a way cooperation can't.

  • (Score: 1) by mcgrew on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:07PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:07PM (#2613) Homepage Journal

    Well, yes, competetion got us to the moon, but cooperation got us a big permanent space station. How long did MIR last?

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org