I think we can see that this isn’t true in this case. They are building on successful work from 2019’s record setting attempt, implying plenty of continuity. And these are undergrads so they are not generally doing heavy research. They are likely well advised.

Good advisor, yes. But knowledge retention is critical. They've been at it for nearly 20 years, not 5.

Great, that strengthens my point.

If a 21 century rocketry group takes 20 years to reach the Karman line, college students or not, they are the definition of incompetent. Maybe they should all get internships at the United Launch Alliance; good for lapping out of the gravy train and not much else.

Depends on the team. They also have the virtue of being able to get almost any alumni to talk to them.

Well, I would guess the knowledge is burned into the mind of the students?

They probably have all their documentation going back years on a usc google drive account.

This is so frustrating to me. I was involved in a cyber security club that just started in my university. Both complete incentive misalignment and lack of focus. In the first committee meeting I was excited and pitched a plan to go from "zero to one", setting up training curriculums, building talent pipelines (esp from year 1s) from the student populace to us, institutional knowledge retention to keep and grow knowledge, getting mentors/research links with professors etc. After drawing everything on a white board, I turned around to find a glassy eyed committee. Every single one said "nah, let's just meet every week and uh, talk about a ctf or something". The president looked around and agreed with them. Over the semester I realized the president was far more interested in going to events and introducing himself as president than actually having any impact. As I predicted at the start, the initial hype and momentum gave way to lethargy and indifference. Participation from both non members and members fell off a cliff.