Why Elon Musk's Starship rocket is beating NASA in the space race

low information article, perhaps one or two sentences that address that "why", a poorly framed milquetoast word salad basically ascribing it to risk posture.

it's not risk posture, and it's not muskly engineering genius either. it is culture.

i'm not sure space-x is 100% healthy, but they're clearly getting things done. what is crystal clear is that nasa culture, and that of it's major contractors like boeing, is terminally ill.

you need good engineers, not mediocre bureaucrats, and you need to pay market salaries and have an acceptable work culture to hire and retain those engineers long enough to become experienced.

Because he did learn the job of his engineers to guide them better.