I don't believe the JWST effort is comparable to anything SpaceX is doing. Falcon 9 first optimized for manufacturing cost for a well-proven category of produc

I don't believe the JWST effort is comparable to anything SpaceX is doing. Falcon 9 first optimized for manufacturing cost for a well-proven category of product. Pretty much every aspect of orbital multi-stage rocket design is well explored, and they can surely hire people with experience in it. Optimizing for manufacturing cost is also an activity that many people have experience in. It's an innovative and risky business strategy, but nothing being done is physically or technologically risky - the only risk is they may not be able to optimize costs enough, which is only a risk to the business. For the next innovation, first-stage landing, it was also very low-risk to their core business. If they screw up the landing stuff, then the first stage blows up somewhere, but they were all going to do that anyways, no risk to the primary payload. This let them iterate on it rapidly for very low cost and risk. Building a brand-new space telescope of an original design with a dozen new and revolutionary technologies is a whole different ballgame. There's a ton of unknown unknowns that nobody can anticipate ahead of time, only one try per device, and it's either total success or failure. It shouldn't be too surprising that it overran expected costs and deadlines so far. It's more a statement on the Government contracting process that attempts to treat building revolutionary technology just like building the 10 millionth Jeep.