India’s Bargain Mars Spacecraft Cost Less Than Many Space Movies

India achieved a remarkable feat earlier this week — the nation became only one of a handful of countries to successfully send a probe to Mars. The $75 million mission has been hailed as an achievement by NASA and other space experts from around the world.

Just how remarkable is this bargain mission? As a tweet from travel writer Jon Tindale pointed out, MOM cost less than the 2000 Gary Sinise movie Mission To Mars. (Note that we came up with a different dollar figure below.)

Just for fun, we’ve compared MOM to several space movies below. All dollar figures are adjusted for inflation from budgets listed in the Internet Movie Database.

Avatar: $263 million ($237 million in 2009 dollars)

Wall-E: $199 million ($180 million in 2008 dollars)

The Fifth Element: $138 million ($93 million in 1997 dollars)

Mission to Mars: $124 million ($90 million in 2000 dollars)

Elysium: $117 million ($115 million in 2013 dollars)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: $115 million ($35 million in 1979 dollars)

Gravity: $102 million ($100 million in 2013 dollars)

Apollo 13: $101.5 million ($62 million in 1995 dollars)

Dune (1984): $92 million ($40 million in 1984 dollars)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: $76 million ($19.4 million in 1977 dollars)

2001: A Space Odyssey: $72 million ($10.5 million in 1968 dollars)

Mars Orbiter Mission: $70 million (2014 dollars)

The Right Stuff: $65 million ($27 million in 1983 dollars)

Serenity: $49 million ($40 million in 2005 dollars)

Star Wars (1977): $43 million ($11 million in 1977 dollars)

Outland: $42 million ($16 million in 1981 dollars)

Alien: $36 million ($11 million in 1979 dollars)

War of the Worlds (1953): $18 million ($2 million in 1953 dollars)

Silent Running: $6.2 million ($1.1 million in 1972 dollars)

Moon: $5.5 million ($5 million in 2009 dollars)

Apollo 18: $5.3 million ($5 million in 2011 dollars)

Elizabeth Howell

Elizabeth Howell is the senior writer at Universe Today. She also works for Space.com, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience, among others. Career highlights include watching three shuttle launches, and going on a two-week simulated Mars expedition in rural Utah. You can follow her on Twitter @howellspace or contact her at her website.

Recent Posts

Two Stars in a Binary System are Very Different. It's Because There Used to be Three

A beautiful nebula in the southern hemisphere with a binary star at it's center seems…

13 hours ago

The Highest Observatory in the World Comes Online

The history of astronomy and observatories is full of stories about astronomers going higher and…

13 hours ago

Is the JWST Now an Interplanetary Meteorologist?

The JWST keeps one-upping itself. In the telescope's latest act of outdoing itself, it examined…

14 hours ago

Solar Orbiter Takes a Mind-Boggling Video of the Sun

You've seen the Sun, but you've never seen the Sun like this. This single frame…

14 hours ago

What Can AI Learn About the Universe?

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become ubiquitous, with applications ranging from data analysis, cybersecurity,…

14 hours ago

Enceladus’s Fault Lines are Responsible for its Plumes

The Search for Life in our Solar System leads seekers to strange places. From our…

1 day ago