>well, actually, I do, of course... I think it's because Luna-24 nearly 5 decades ago was a success, and reported Soviet success rates of their probe programs

>well, actually, I do, of course... I think it's because Luna-24 nearly 5 decades ago was a success, and reported Soviet success rates of their probe programs were 100% (despite the actual number being lower), alongside some cheekiness due to Russian timeline being chosen to land just before the Indian mission. I don't think that such a failure of a 50 year old technology with a previous "100%" success rate is that weird for people to have such a take about. I think it is weird that you suggest SpaceX rockets are blowing up all the time, when a much more direct and accurate comparison would be the Japanese/Israeli lander failure. Do we consider Japan/Israel serious contenders to NASA/ESA in space here? Probably not in the same way as India and China.