We tend to think of risk management and secondarily the cost horizon of [re]building eroded technical competence, in the West, but hn commenter User23 also makes a point that is incredibly important and less often mentioned:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33939692

> " 'Indeed, besides the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Parliaments of Iceland and the Isle of Man, every organization [of 60+] in the western world that's been continuously operating since 1530 is a university.'

-- https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/E...

I believe this is why it's critically important that universities remain focused on their timeless mission rather than chasing secular fads. The Buxton index, described in the [link], is an incredibly important concept."

It's natural that we would think technology startups compelling due to the way they succeed with difficulty and risk management competence. But if their Buxton index of planning horizon is limited by their runway, and a decade is considered an Uber-long horizon, how futuristic and exceptional are we ultimately talking? I agree with the parent commenter that the eggs in two baskets serve separately appropriate purposes.

But no one questions why we are working with decades long development timelines. Even Apollo was conceived in 1960 and landed in 1969, under one decade let alone multiple decades. SpaceX went from 0 launches to orbit in a decade, then from 0 reusable to world first in a decade and now looks like they are gunning for Mars within a decade.

I agree with the other poster that the only thing that will light a fire under the US' butt is having a peer country clown them in a space milestone. I don't like the CCP and I abhor their practices but I do root for their space program since seeing that bright red commie flag on the moon is the only egg big enough to cover all the faces necessary in the usgov in order to actually get something done.

I also really hope that India gets in the game in a serious way so we can have even more competition, an India-China space race would be fun to watch and would have the US scrambling to catch up.

The F-1 engine was developed in response to a mid-50s requirement, and itself borrowed heavily from 40s Nazi technology.

It does seem historically accurate to say that governments don't successfully complete state-of-the-art mega-projects absent war or an existential treat.

I expect those are the only things powerful enough to cut through the bureaucratic resistance to progress.

Whatever he turns out to be, this tech is going to be there in the head of those people working at SpaceX. Should it go bankrupt later, other investors will hire them and they go forward.

Musk is … unique. Let’s say. But he is very good at organizing companies for a relentless push for the results.

Treating employees as burnable resources isn't very good business, though. He's "good at" long-term dysfunction for short-term gain. Through that lens, I wouldn't be surprised if he decided to juice Twitter's MAU metrics by turning the place into a trainwreck.