Less than Christopher Nolan’s film: X users gasp at Chandrayaan-3’s low budget
Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, August 23
Indian Moon Mission’s historic success was amplified further Wednesday with social media users gasping at its low cost.
One tweet on X (by Newsthink) said, “Kind of crazy when you realise India’s budget for Chandrayaan-3 USD 75 million is less than the film Interstellar at USD 165 million.”
Minister of State for Space Jitendra Singh was not amused as he hammered the edge and cost effectiveness of the mission.
“We have been working on cost effective missions,” he said as people marvelled over the cost contrasts between Chandrayaan 3 and Christopher Nolan’s award winning science fiction film Interstellar.
X boss Elon Musk also hailed the contrast saying “Good for India.”
While the world was stunned by the low costs of the historic Chandrayaan 3 mission, ISRO scientists said it was part of their work ethic to build sustainable, cost effective mission modules.
Despite a shoestring space budget, India has been expanding in the sector.
Today it became the first in the world to land a mission near the potentially water rich lunar south pole.
Out of 424 foreign satellites launched in the last nine years, 389 have been launched by India which launched itsfirst satellite Aryabhata in 1975.
Aryabhata was completely designed and fabricated in India and launched by a Soviet Kosmos-3M rocket from Kapustin Yar on April 19, 1975.
In the last nine years, India made Rs 3300 crore launching 389 satellites, the government data show.
“This marks a massive rise from 35 satellites that were launched by India before 2014,” Jitendra Singh said today recalling the record 104 satellites launched aboard PSLV-C3 with 101 of these belonging to international customers.
Even space sector budgets, though still modest, have been rising.
Against Rs 5615 crore allocated for the sector between 2013 and 2014, Rs 12543 crore—a rise of 123 % — was set aside between 2023 and 24.
