I've known about the DART failure as of nearly a year ago, so it's not
a very good secret.

DART proves that even with having a 100% known and beacon enabled
target, and even with a fully ground-controlled plus AI/robotic
fly-by-rocket capability that's far more fuel usage efficient than any
humanly operated lander, including the fact of this effort had the
advantage of onboard reaction wheels and that of having been taking
their damn sweet time, in that it proves that even this level of such a
basic task was simply too complex and otherwise having been too fuel
consuming for even that of a zero gravity and zero mascon environment
to have accomplished.

Spendy R&D is currently ongoing at creating our first operational
prototype CEV lander, of which without payload and by way of removing
most everything that's unessential for a terrestrial test-flight
application shouldn't have any problems in the way of achieving the
equivalent of a 1/6 gravity capability, so that terrestrial drop and
down-range proof-testing of every essential fly-by-rocket method that
involves powerful reaction wheels, computers and pilot expertise can be
once and for all resolved.

Obviously such accomplishments will be photographed on quality film and
digital video in order to insure the final science, technology and the
end-user expertise is functioning exactly as planned. Controlled
fly-by-rocket landings simply have to be proven right here on good old
mother Earth, prior to loading up their CEV with all of it's extra
equipment, tonnes of extra deorbit fuel, plus whatever payloads and
crew of four.

No damn fool is going for the moon without their first having
accomplished the real thing right here on Earth, and I'm certainly not
speaking about any actual deorbit from space, just that of a slow
aircraft or helicopter assisted deployment at something below 10,000',
and seeing the results taking place from within, and of external views
fully documented on film/video so that we'll all know that it's a
doable method of safely providing such a purely fly-by-rocket
controlled down-range and subsequent soft-landing of their choosing.

With powerful "reaction wheels" plus having fully computer modulated
reaction and primary thrusters (either of which didn't exist for their
NASA/Apollo fiasco), that daunting task shouldn't be all that
insurmountable, just terribly fuel and/or energy consuming.
-
Brad Guth