Who is we? NASA had failures and disasters before they finally got it right.
The Japanese are new to the game.
The recent U S attempt mentioned was a private company new to the game.
I’m guessing BBC means ‘humanity,’ by the ‘we.’ From a simple cost perspective, I’d say we’ve gotten better.
Both the original two players in the Moon race, the US and the Soviet Union had some significant failures.
The Apollo program had 32 total missions, and 6 successful landings. Corrected for inflation, it cost about $200 billion dollars, required a national effort, and development of new technologies.
The Japanese mission that ended up upside-down (but still somewhat functional) cost $120 million.
Anyone want to bet they’ll fail twice in a row?
The Indians just put a mission down successfully with a lander and a rover, and also got their propulsion module back to Earth orbit where it remains making observations with onboard instruments. That mission cost something like $90 million (it was supposed to be more like $75 but had overruns).
Anyone here doubt SpaceX could do it pretty easily if they cared to?
We’re in an era where it costs less to send a rover to the moon than it takes to buy an Airbus 320. Or buy 5% of a destroyer for that matter.
Heck, Wikipedia has a list of over 100 films that have lost more money than Chandrayaan-3 cost.
After having been involved with a couple of NASA programs/systems in the past when I was doing research, I can certainly understand why it very likely won’t be NASA that goes back to the moon. They are gun shy from their two shuttle disasters and the resulting CYA bureaucracy isn’t equipped for innovation or success.