India recently launched a small spacecraft, Mangalyaan, to the planet Mars. For us mere mortals, that is approximately 140 million miles away and a journey of 300 days. For a project of this kind of caliber, one would expect costs to be in the hundreds of millions or even billions considering the research and development that goes into it; however, Indians have proved than an extraordinary task such as this can be completed with only $75 million. India will be the first country in Asia and fourth in the world to have successfully deployed a spacecraft to Mars.
As Indians love their movies, it is only suitable that the costs of launching be compared to the Bollywood, Indian movie industry. One commentator believes that the 75 million used for the launching of the spacecraft is approximately equivalent to the budget of four bollywood movies.
In the last decade, India has gained a lot of recognition for its low-cost and high profit innovation, especially in the fields of health care and education. The Mangalyaan is an ideal example of how innovation could decrease costs. With such ingenuity, the Indian space unit can maintain their budget or perhaps delegate it to fields where capital is lacking. The real question that comes from the Mangalyaan, is where will Indian be cutting costs on next?