You set your initial goals low, so you can achieve them, especially if you’re depended on public funding.
It’s a great successes story, if they flew and met all their original goals, and then just try to extend it. It’s much different story, if initial plan would be for example for 20 flights, but it’ll break after 15th. Then you have failure, people questioning why we spent so much money on failed mission, etc.
Plus, it’s easier to ask for $x billion dollars for the mission, meet all the goals and then ask for few extra $ to support extending already proven and successful mission, then to ask for higher amount from a start.
It’s a great successes story, if they flew and met all their original goals, and then just try to extend it. It’s much different story, if initial plan would be for example for 20 flights, but it’ll break after 15th. Then you have failure, people questioning why we spent so much money on failed mission, etc.
Plus, it’s easier to ask for $x billion dollars for the mission, meet all the goals and then ask for few extra $ to support extending already proven and successful mission, then to ask for higher amount from a start.