>the United States and the Soviet Union were racing to land there, they crashed spacecraft after spacecraft before each finally succeeded in 1966. The government space agencies were able to learn from each landing attempt.
Roger.
>Today, by contrast, private companies are expected to repeat these successes, without government resources and without lessons gleaned from many failed and successful missions
Misplaced expectations.
They're going to need more crashes.
>the folks in the background look like they're holding back tears.
This was not in the background when NASA astronauts were tragically lost before they got to the moon the first time.
I expect anyone to repeat these failures until they have enough lessons learned themselves.
On the one hand we have people lauding SpaceX/Musk as super geniuses able to achieve great feats without the supposed waste and largesse of the government, and on the other we have the same group wringing their hands when expectations are set based on their gushing praise.
"Naturally", it can take so much time to accomplish something working with nature, time is one of the most likely natural forces to cause expectations to exceed accomplishments or even possibilities.
The whole world was heartbroken as awareness was universally raised about remaining risks even after such extensive and successful efforts had intentionally and brilliantly greatly reduced the possibilities.
Lurking risks still exist and unforseen failure modes remain as defined.
Roger.
>Today, by contrast, private companies are expected to repeat these successes, without government resources and without lessons gleaned from many failed and successful missions
Misplaced expectations.
They're going to need more crashes.
>the folks in the background look like they're holding back tears.
This was not in the background when NASA astronauts were tragically lost before they got to the moon the first time.
I expect anyone to repeat these failures until they have enough lessons learned themselves.
>why is it so hard to pull off a lunar landing?
Mother Nature is a bitch.