[manigandham]

It's not that simple. It's not like some video game tech tree unlock where suddenly you get access to lots of cool new stuff just because of some prior work.

NASA had less technology when some of this original work was done (and still does in some cases), there are budget considerations, public organization issues, political maneuvering and plenty of monopoly contracts meant to make as money as possible instead of improving technology. They're great at what they do but they are far from an optimal organization.

[nickff]

You are describing a great set of excuses for NASA, but none of these things help SpaceX develop better rockets.

[manigandham]

> why is SpaceX so much better at rocketry than everyone else?

Because Spacex doesn't have to deal with these things. In fact they benefit from the Nasa funding right now as a major source of revenue. They wouldn't have survived if they were just self-funded. Also they can get talent from NASA and other organizations that have already done a lot of groundbreaking work with pioneers in the field.

Just to be clear, Spacex has focused on reducing the launch costs but they haven't yet and they still have a long way to go to actually delivering people and heavier loads in a repeatable process. They've also taken about 15 years to get to the last launch so none of this was quick.