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.
Okay, sure. But what's the point?
Much of what passes for national "space programs" today is just idiotic political ego-stroking. A country like India seeks to land on the moon for the same reason a country like Argentina builds an aircraft. At the outbreak of the Falklands war, Argentina sent its one aircraft carrier to Chile for safe keeping.
Every dollar spent today on space "exploration" is money down a pointless rathole.
Anyone here doubt SpaceX could do it pretty easily if they cared to?
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Yes I do; SpaceX is very far behind the initial projections with the current NASA Artemis-StarShip plans. As it stands now, China has a very good chance of getting to the moon first.
Further, the whole Artemis plan is very expensive and likely unworkable in practice. It will take some 20 launches to get 4 guys to the moon. That’s after they get the Lunar Orbiter Module up and working.
StarShip has no crew escape-on-descent. Only on ascent. Unnecessary safety risk. Even the Apollo Lunar Module had this crew safety feature.
With luck, StarShip 3 will make it to orbit next month, and hopefully they will be able to prove the refueling concept this year as well. Without that, the whole Artemis mission fails.
SpaceX’s Boca Chica site is in jeopardy from environmental lawsuits. If the envirowackos’ case (Sierra Club) succeeds they will have to close the site. This will take many months or years to get through the courts, and the site can still operate, if they get a stay of execution against the various agencies that grant permits (and does not violate prior agreements), while the case goes on.