With the successful landing of Chang'e-6, it has once again attracted global attention, but the cost of this moon landing has cost the mainland nearly 5 billion!
However, when India landed on the moon, it only spent $75 million! Why is the same moon landing, and the gap between the two so big, one can't help but wonder if our technology is really inferior to India's?
With the progress of science and technology, China's space capabilities are also growing day by day, and India is also desperately trying to catch up, in this modern version of the "race to the moon", China has won a good position.
More than ten years ago, China spent nearly 120 million yuan on the cost of Chang'e-3! Not to mention the cost of Chang'e-6 this year, the total cost of the probe launched by India last year was only 75 million US dollars.
At first glance, the huge gap of 75 million US dollars translates to nearly 500 million yuan, which seems to imply a disparity in efficiency.
However, the gap between China and India's space technology cannot be illustrated by superficial figures.
You must know that Chang'e-6 sampled and returned to the far side of the moon this time, which is the first mission in the world, and the terrain on the far side of the moon is very complex, so the difficulty is not ordinary.
The return of Chang'e-6, except for the non-manned, all the other actions are manned lunar landing mode, simply put, Chang'e-6 is an advance rehearsal of manned lunar landing.
But it was only one unmanned sampling, and some countries in the West couldn't stand it anymore, and all kinds of grievances were released, all of which were saying that "China is going to dominate the moon!" ”
It has to be said that the manifestation of such "stress" does not affect the mainland's continued study of lunar soil.
In 2004, the mainland began its lunar exploration program, and the three-part strategy of "orbiting, landing, and returning" also demonstrated our ability to plan for the long term.
Since the successful launch of Chang'e-1, the mainland has started the journey of lunar exploration, and this lunar satellite has not only achieved three-dimensional topographic mapping of the full coverage of the moon.
In each subsequent trip to the moon, scientific data of different values were realized for the continent, from "the third country with a soft landing on the moon", to "the third country to obtain lunar samples", and finally to "the first time to take soil on the back of the moon".
These missions require a lot of money to move forward, and Chang'e-6 is much more difficult and complex than before, so it needs more money.
India's lunar exploration started relatively late compared to China, but the pace of development is truly impressive.
Take their Luna-3, for example, with a soft landing near the moon's south pole, making India the fourth country to make a soft landing on the moon's surface.
As we all know, Chandrayaan-3's mission is to achieve a soft landing and short-term exploration near the south pole of the moon.
Although the mission itself has a certain degree of difficulty and importance, its complexity and technical requirements are much lower than that of Chang'e-6.
After all, Chandrayaan-3 does not need to return samples and does not need to operate on the far side of the moon, which greatly reduces the difficulty and cost of this mission.
Therefore, India completed the "Luna-3" exploration mission within a limited budget of 75 million US dollars.
However, India is also very adept at leveraging existing technologies to maximize scientific value within a limited budget. This spirit of "Indian innovation" has also enabled India to achieve the feat of landing on the moon at a relatively low cost.
Although this "fast, economical, and stable" model can indeed enable India to make achievements in the aerospace field, it has been difficult to support the subsequent aerospace industry for a long time.
As part of China's lunar exploration program, the budget of Chang'e-6 on the mainland not only includes the expenditure of a single mission, but also includes long-term investment in technology accumulation, talent training, infrastructure construction and other aspects.
It's like a comprehensive investment in education, which may seem huge in the short term, but in the long run it paves the way for the future, and we can say that we have spent every penny on the edge.
While the budget difference is huge, we can't simply equate it with a gap in the level of technology. In fact, both China and India have demonstrated remarkable innovation capabilities in the aerospace sector.
Let's take a look at China's cost in the space industry.
Since the successful launch of Chang'e-1 in 2007, the mainland has been studying how to achieve the best cost performance, and in the end it only spent 1.4 billion, which is the price of 1 to 2 kilometers of subway in Beijing.
However, compared with those probes in the United States that cost hundreds of millions of dollars at every turn, the falsification of the mainland's lunar exploration is really "doing big things with a small amount of money".
Overall, an "Apollo program" in the United States has cost more than $25 billion, while the mainland's lunar exploration program has cost about 20 billion yuan so far.
However, the 20 billion includes the total cost of 6 spacecraft and rockets, as well as major systems and tests.
Along the way, China's aerospace industry has continuously achieved significant results, including the Chang'e-6 spacecraft, all of which have demonstrated the strength of the mainland's lunar exploration.
But then again, although India's economy is small, its space industry is growing rapidly. India's model in aerospace is completely a "small but fine" way of thinking.
Although the two countries have different ways of innovating in spaceflight, both have their own characteristics and have made important contributions to the aerospace industry of mankind.
China's systemic innovation has paved the way for future deep space exploration, while India's efficient innovation has provided new ideas for developing countries to participate in space activities.
This is not a simple "inferior skill", but a difference in the nature of the task and long-term planning. China and India have their own characteristics in space exploration, and both are contributing to human exploration of the universe.
Information sources:
Guangming.com: "How much does the lunar exploration project cost to run so far to the moon?" 》
China Youth Daily: "How much did the lunar exploration project cost"
Time Weekly: "The Fourth in the World! With a cost of only $74.6 million, why did India land on the moon? 》