Visitors to the Red Planet

For John, BLUF:  Mankind is again venturing out into space.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A pretty impressive effort by India has put a satellite in orbit around Mars, the Red Planet.  On the first attempt. 

Mangalyaan, Hindi for Mars craft, cost $74 million to send into space, making it by far the cheapest of recent missions to Mars.  The U.S. spent $671 million getting its Maven satellite to Mars orbit, where it arrived late Sunday.

So why can they do it for 11% of what we spent?

Congratulations to the Indian Space Agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Regards  —  Cliff