[ultrablack]

Nothing stopped NASA from doing what SpaceX did. Or New York City. Its not like they started with billions and billions. In fact, many claims that it was all funded by the government. Well, why didn't they just built it themselves?

[desumeku]

https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1992ASPC...26..599W

This is why.

[mrkstu]

So answer the question- why indeed did the US incumbents/Europe/Russia/China all fail to do what SpaceX did do?