[rst]

Also, some of this is accounted for by a difference in development philosophy. The typical NASA project tests finished designs to make sure that they'll work. SpaceX frequently (currently for Starship) tests half-finished designs because they want to know how they will fail, for future revision. (Example: between starship flight tests 1 and 2, the whole staging method changed; forward fins are being relocate on Starship starting, I think launch after next to reduce heating in reentry, etc.)

They do tests on production vehicles too, e.g. the static fires that precede just about every launch, but those aren't directly comparable to the stuff they deliberately blow up to see how that happens.

[teamonkey]

In an ideal world NASA would also do this (see the Apollo program). The optics of a government program ‘failing’ are so spectacularly bad they simply cannot afford to do this.