> The Faster, Better, Cheaper option does not work with space craft.

Can work. The slower original gave us Voyager, which is still working 40 years later.

But the WISE spacecraft is also an enormous success created after the “faster, better, cheaper” model. It only lasted … hold on … it’s been reactivated. It was active for 2 years, switched off, but has since been switched back on and has been active for a further five years. Successes too many to list here.

As for 17 years without incident, it’s more accurate to say 17 years without any total failures.

Make that 14 years. The NASA Genesis spacecraft crash-landed on on September 8, 2004, which is only 14 years ago.

What about other space agencies?
Phobos (both of them) failed. – Roscosmos
Philae failed – ESA
Beagle failed – UK space agency
Hayabusa (the original) failed – JAXA
Jul 3, 2017 – The Long March 5 launch failed to reach orbit – CNSA
Apr 3, 2018 – India lost contact with new communications satellite – ISRO
NASA’s partial failures include Galileo at Jupiter (antenna failure), Juno at Jupiter (orbit failure), New Horizons at Ultima Thule (pointing failure).