

From India, Proof That a Trip to Mars Doesn’t Have to Break the Bank - credo
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/business/international/from-india-proof-that-a-trip-to-mars-doesnt-have-to-break-the-bank.html

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Oculus
From the sounds of this article it seems like the success of the mission was
merely luck.

> The average age of India’s 2,500-person Mars team is 27

> instead of building many models (a qualification model, a flight model and a
> flight spare), as is the norm ..., scientists built the final flight model
> right from the start. Expensive ground tests were also limited.

So not only do you have an incredibly young team, you're also skipping the
step-by-step approach that includes testing. _“India’s ‘late beginner’
advantage was that it could learn from earlier mission failures "_ So are you
trying to tell me that NASA doesn't have access to previous mission failure
insights? I could imagine that there is some bureaucracy that can be cut out
from NASA (as with any large organization), but I also think the reason for
the extremely cheap mission is the ISRO cut a lot of corners.

~~~
CmonDev
"are you trying to tell me that NASA doesn't have access to previous mission
failure insights" \- even before that:
[https://xkcd.com/984/](https://xkcd.com/984/)

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CmonDev
"The Russians, for example, believe in putting large amounts of time and
resources into testing so that the systems are robust." \- I wonder if India's
attitude will change when they will become capable of designing and funding
manned missions.

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codex
The cost differential is about right given that Indian labor, skilled and
unskilled, is about 1/10 the cost of the US. This mission employed 2500--not
exactly Spartan.

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sixbrx
I see the N=1 model of statistics is still alive and well in the media.

