The Surprising Chart That Puts India's Mission to Mars Into Perspective

India is developing a reputation for doing big things on a shoestring budget — remember the world's cheapest car a few years ago?

Early Wednesday, the nation of 1.25 billion people successfully put a spacecraft into orbit around Mars at a bargain price.

This Aug. 26, 2003 image made available by NASA shows Mars photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope on the planet's closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years. (AP Photo/NASA)

Business Insider reported the astonishingly low cost of the space trek — $74 million — and quoted Indian Space Research Organization chief K. Radhakrishnan calling the Mars Orbiter Mission "the cheapest interplanetary mission ever to be undertaken by the world."

Cheap mission, indeed.

Take a look at the chart below to get a sense of scale.

Image via Business Insider

That's right: "Gravity," a movie about going to space, cost more than actually going to space.

London's most expensive apartment ran $237 million, Business Insider noted, which is more than three times as much as India's Mars mission, and cost of the U.S. MAVEN space probe is closing in on $700 million, astronomically higher than India's voyage.

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