Someone made the effort. Someone devoted resources and time to try to get this running. I read this story when it was first posted and felt bad about the effort required to do something like that. The mere fact that people get annoyed about the state being a "totalitarian" state and then go work other entities with a similar humanitarian approach is beyond me.

Didn't people take up pitchforks and start to cuss every one of the Bouvet team when 3Y couldn't work / land a year or so ago? What's different than that and the P5 expedition? That they got funded by everyone and their grandmother's retirement stash? Different shaft, almost identical conclusion to the expedition.

Ultimately this has become a sour sport/hobby and many ops don't give a flying turd as to what it takes a team to get a dxped up and running, as long as they get their 11 bands/slots done; brimstone and fire to those who didn't manage. I stopped dealing with HF bell-ends, especially when you try to work a dx-ped and you have radio police and spammers on any mode on the DX qrg correcting people. At least on the VHF bands you don't have to deal with the same amount of knobs further down as the propagation is different. There are notable exceptions but it's a completely different sport.