L4sBotIndia just landed on the Moon for less than it cost to make Interstellar | The Independent
CaptainPedanticCool.
The average income in India is 25x ish less than that of the US. If we scale the $75 million cost to land on the moon by 25 times, we get $1.8 billion. The Perseverance rover’s cost is estimated at $2.75 billion and that thing landed on Mars.
It’s incredibly impressive that India has landed on the moon on their 2nd try. Nothing should take away from that, and India should be very proud of their achievement. But geez this is a braindead article. Yes, poorer countries can pay people less do the same amount of work as someone in another country.
I respectfully disagree with you. It’s a bit misleading to compare average incomes like that. I would assume the income disparity is nowhere near as large for valuable scientists and engineers working for a national space program. In addition, you are only comparing labour costs. Some materials can be cheaper in India, but certainly not by a factor of 25 and certainly not all of them. Therefore, I wouldn’t say the article is braindead.
The difference in income is by about 9-10 time. Salary for a NASA scientist can go in the range of ₹1 to 2 crores (converted from dollar to rupees). For a ISRO scientist however, they may earn in ₹10-15 lakhs.
I’ve made a comment explaining why the mission was so cost-effective just below this comment you’ve posted on.
BobKerman3999Can you use metric system numbers? I don’t know what’s a crore or a lakhs
Okay, sure, I’ll use the international numbering system, as opposed to the Indian numbering system. I’m taking the salary of NASA employees from this page. GS-15 are the top-level employees at NASA, who earn around $105,123 to $136,659. $136,659 is about ₹11,295,344.66. From this site, we see that ISRO scientists earn around ₹720,000 to ₹2,400,000). Taking the highest range of salary, 11,295,344.66/2,400,000 ~= 4.71 approximately.
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