Just checking in here, did you find something in my writing that suggested I was being disparaging or dismissive of what an awesome accomplishment this is? If so would love to know how you got there so that I could be more clear in the future.
To neutral readers, it appears complementary — not contradictory. It adds more info about the cost of failure when trying to optimize for more science.
If you can't see it that way, try picturing the reply prefixed as "to add to that, ..."
My impression is you were trying to say too much effort and fuel was used for landing and they should have put a bit more into science. If that isn't what you meant, my mistake, but it is how I understood it.
Thanks! That helps a lot. It was not what I meant but re-reading it I can see how you got that impression. I find the orbital entry/landing phases of exploratory missions to be the most interesting technically as they always have bunch of technical challenges with engineers making trade-offs. The "sky crane" idea NASA came up with blew me away (as an example). I think the ISRO team really did a fabulous job on the landing here. Watching the numbers touch down was so delicate.
