The secret behind India's budget-friendly moonshots: How ISRO has developed its low-cost edge
Once again, the low cost of Chandrayaan-3 is being highlighted by comparing it to movies. At nearly $75 million, it is cheaper than 2014 sci-fi movie 'Interstellar' and even the recent Bollywood movie 'Adipurush' which cost slightly more than the mission.
In fact, Chandrayaan-2 had cost more than Chandrayaan-3.
The frugality of India's space odyssey has become the talk of the world. How does Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), India's space agency, manage to keep the costs so low?
A culture of frugality
Remember how once ISRO staff used to carry rocket cones on bicycles to the launch site? They may no longer be using bicycles but that culture of frugality stays on.
This culture was started by Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India's space programme and the founder of ISRO, who had started off with a lab in his tiny outhouse.
When ISRO was set up in the 1960s, Moon and Mars missions were not on the agenda, even in the faraway future. «We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the Moon or the planets or manned space-flight,» Sarabhai had famously said.
Space technology for Sarabhai was purely for the direct benefit of the society.
With such clear objectives, and working in a period when India was very poor, ISRO's leaders developed a style that produced maximum benefits with the minimum of effort. During most of its existence since 1947, India has struggled with paucity.
That has created a mindset against lavishness. The cost has to be kept in check always as against lavish spending at NASA or European Space Agency where costs can run way beyond initial estimates.
Then ISRO chairman Dr K Sivan had explained the frugal nature of India's space and interplanetary
