So, this popped up via my town’s facebook group. I couldn’t resist responding. If you’re curious, here’s the wikipedia page on the Indian mars probe.

My response to this, and the assorted “Yeah!”, “We should give them nothing” etc, I responded as follows;

Do you understand what an amazing achievement that was? The normal cost of any western probe to Mars? Hell, I’d gladly pay more tax I can’t afford to for that stunning gem.
It was, and still is absolutely incredible they did it for so little, and with so little. It’s giving them a reason to strive, to push for something different, for knowledge and understanding and plain old new technology. You know, just that thing humanity must get more of quickly, or watch our world burn from a fire of our own making. We fail, we get to watch our grandchildren or our great grandchildren die. All of them.

I probably shouldn’t have, and hyperbole just a bit on the All Die prediction, but eh, we do nothing about oil running out & climate change, we’re probably all screwed. We’re still probably all screwed anyway, but..

I wonder if this has anything to do with the slow-motion civilization collapse depicted in my current read, Ready Player One?