India Can Launch a Mars Mission for Less That Than the Cost of a Holliwood Blockbuster!

Saritha Rai, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote recently that India had recently launched  a spacecraft to Mars.  There are many facets that makes the  Mangalyaan satellite unique however:

• "...it is the $75 million mission’s thrifty approach to time, money and materials that is getting attention." Saritha writes

Furthur on Sarita write:

• [Recently] 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.”

Complete Saritia Times article HERE

30 Update: Soyuz Docks With ISS

At 11:11 Moscow time, 3 pm Eastern, the Soyuz capsule carrying one American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts docked with the international space station. This crew is scheduled to remain on the ISS for 150 days.

Below is the video of the Soyuz as it makes it's approach and docking maneuvers.