The article did mention that instruments on the lander would be removed and repurposed for other missions, so I guess they wanted to save money there instead of sending the lander as-is with a high probability of it not functioning at all, and all the hardware being a total waste.
> Sunk cost implies future costs being spent in excess of value.
Isn't it (future_costs + expenditures_so_far > value) rather than (future_costs > value)? If I expect to win 10 euros from the lottery and put in 9 euros already, then buying another 2-euro lottery ticket is a loss because spending 11 for an expected gain of 10 is a loss even if those extra 2 euros to gain a potential 10... or am I falling for the fallacy now?
Is this like the monty hall thing where the answer changes if you're given a chance to change your mind halfway through (in that you'd not spend 11 up front, but now that you spent 9, maybe spending the remaining 2 to minimize the loss is a good idea)?
avoiding sunk cost is the idea of not attaching value to the money already spent.
if you expect to get $10 for spending $2 more dollars, that would not be a sunk cost fallacy.
if you expect to get $10 and you need to spend $11 more dollars, that could be a sunk cost fallacy.
where it gets difficult is if you previously spent $10,000 and you need to spend $10 more to get $11. at that point it can feel like a good bargain compared to the total losses. that's the sunk cost fallacy.
Costs already spent:
Costs remaining: Future costs which will be spent anyway: Which begs the question... why not skip testing?Worst case, it's non-functional or fails to land, in which case you don't have to spend the operational costs.