India has become one of the few nations to make it to Mars

India just cemented its place as a space power, and put NASA’s billions to shame, with the news that its $74 million space probe just entered Mars orbit. The orbiter, dubbed Mangalyaan, dropped into orbit following a burn at 10:30 EST, making India the first country to successfully reach Mars orbit on the first try. Actually, NASA’s history of Mars missions makes for pretty sobering reading: the first three missions failed to even reach Earth orbit, and it took until Mariner 9 and for the USA to get a probe into successful orbit without anything accidentally blowing up.