[John H K]

There actually never was any "NASA Glory Era" where everything worked perfectly.

We had launch vehicles blowing up left and right in the early 60s. The Apollo I ground test killed 3 people. We almost lost Apollo 13.

And we've consistently done better than everyone else. The Soviets had an obscene number of Venus and Mars probes fail. The Japanese just had theirs fail. Beagle 2 failed.

Not that better performance shouldn't be demanded and expected but there's a limit to how perfectly reliable all of this is going to be.

[brownsfan]

There actually never was any "NASA Glory Era" where everything worked perfectly.

I agree. Our memories trick us. It *seems* they were better then they were. Although, they were amazing given what they had to work with. And, that is where the expectation/criticism comes into play. NASA has better tools, and better background. So, personally, I just expect more.