Placeholder canvas

Things more expensive than Indias Mars Mission

Date:

New Delhi: India’s successful, low-cost Mars mission is a major milestone for the country’s space program, with experts predicting that it could open the door to lucrative space deals with the US and Europe.

India’s mission is even more impressive given its modest price tag of $76 million, significantly less than NASA’s $671 million Maven spacecraft, which recently entered Mars orbit.

It is a great statistic that puts India’s frugal mission in perspective but we think we can do better. NewsMobile brings you a list of other things that are more expensive than India’s Mars mission.

The Bandra-Worli Sea Link

The more than 2-mile-long bridge built to connect downtown Mumbai with its fast-growing suburbs cost around Rs 16.5 billion ($270 million) and took eight years to build. India’s Mangalyaan orbiter was built in a comparatively blistering 15 months.

Mukesh Ambani’s Antilia

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s skyscraper residence in Mumbai is the most expensive billionaire home in the world.

Ambani’s 27-storey, 400,000-square-foot skyscraper home ‘Antilia’ named after a mythical island in the Atlantic, tops the Forbes list of the most expensive homes in the world.

The house has six stories of underground parking, three helicopter pads, and reportedly requires a staff of 600 to keep it running.  Putting Antilia’s scale and cost of $2 Billion into perspective, Forbes compared it to ‘7 World Trade Center’, a 52-storey tower that stands near Ground Zero in Manhattan with 1.7 million square feet of office space that was reportedly built for $2billion.

Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa, known as Burj Dubai, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 metres. It took $1.5 billion to build the Burj Khalifa.

Gravity, the film

The super hit English movie ‘Gravity’ was reportedly made at an estimated $100 million. It is a 2013 space adventure film directed, co-written, co-produced and co-edited by Alfonso Cuaron. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts, and sees them stranded in space after the mid-orbit destruction of their space shuttle and their subsequent attempt to return to Earth.

“There is this story of our Mars mission costing less than the Hollywood movie ‘Gravity.’ … Our scientists have shown the world a new paradigm of engineering and the power of imagination,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Walking Man

Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture ‘Walking Man’ was sold at 2010 auction for a whopping $104.3 million, which is $39 million more that what the Mangalyaan mission cost India.

Facebook Acquiring WhatsApp

Social networking giant Facebook acquire popular mobile messaging service WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion in a cash and stock deal, bolstering the social networking giant’s presence in mobile communications through its largest-ever acquisition.

The hefty transaction – that includes $12 billion worth of Facebook shares, $4 billion in cash and $3 billion in restricted stock units – will boost the world’s biggest social network by adding the 450 million users of WhatsApp, including a significant number of youth.

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia is also one such events that cost much more than India’s mars mission. The consensus figure is $50 billion, which easily qualify Sochi as the most expensive Olympics ever, about 25% more than the $40 billion spent on the much-larger 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Much of the media reports on the Sochi Winter Olympics has focused on record-breaking figures in terms of the number athletes taking part, the number of events they are to compete in – and the overall price tag.

Sochi is situated on the same geographical latitude as St. Tropez on the Mediterranean Sea in France – rarely do temperatures drop below three degrees Celsius (37 degrees Fahrenheit).

Vanisha Mittal’s Wedding

The most lavish wedding of the century took place in the year 2004, when Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal’s only daughter Vanisha Mittal married to Amit Bhatia, a London-born investment banker and owner of Swordfish Investments.

This six day extravaganza held at the Palace of Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte, a chateau in France. More than 1000 guests were invited all over the world and the wedding invitation was mailed in silver boxes that included plane tickets and room booking at a five-star hotel in Paris. 

No expense was spared in this wedding, as it featured Kylie Minogue performance, 45 world-class chefs, wines whose cost was around $1.5 million, flowers and fireworks. This wasn’t enough, the female guests were offered luxurious bags filled with gifts.

The wedding reportedly cost $90 million. That works out to be roughly $300 per second for the six-day wedding, compared with $2.81 a second for the Mars mission.

De Beers Millennium Star diamond

Diamond giant De Beers unveiled the Millennium Star in 1999 to celebrate the new millennium. Weighing 203.04 carats, it is a little wonder that thieves attempted to steal and the 11 rare blue diamonds, while they were on display in London in 2000. The diamonds had an estimated value of £350 million ($570 million).

The Card Players

‘The Card Players’ is a series of oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Painted during Cézanne’s final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series.

One version of ‘The Card Players’ was sold in 2011 to the Royal Family of Qatar for a price of $250 million, making it the most expensive work of art ever sold.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Share post:

Subscribe

Popular

More like this
Related

India’s ‘Election King’ Prepares For 239th Bid Despite Record Of Defeats

New Delhi: K Padmarajan, a 65-year-old tyre repair shop...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr Chooses Nicole Shanahan As His Running Mate For 2024 Polls

Nicole Shanahan, 38 is a California lawyer and philanthropist, and brings fresh energy to Kennedy Jr's bid, focusing on issues such as women's reproductive science, criminal justice reform and environment

US Reiterates Call For Fair Legal Process On Kejriwal’s Arrest; Mentions Cong’s Frozen Accounts

New Delhi: The United States reaffirmed its stance on...

NewsMobile Morning Brief

Delhi HC Seeks ED Response To Arvind Kejriwal’s Plea...