each ship lost was maybe $10-20 million and years exploring were performed by a couple of ships operated by dozens of skilled workers with a very clear path to

each ship lost was maybe $10-20 million and years exploring were performed by a couple of ships operated by dozens of skilled workers with a very clear path to profitability and timeline (succesful journey to india/americas, and in under 2-3 years). That's orders of magnitude less than the thousands of employees and billions of dollars being deployed with no clear business model or profitability in sight.