The successes seem to require the leadership having both incredible competency AND ironclad personal belief that the problem should be solved at almost any cost

The successes seem to require the leadership having both incredible competency AND ironclad personal belief that the problem should be solved at almost any cost. These mega-problems are hard. And, even down a road to eventual success, there are likely to be a lot of "we have to lay off the entire team for 6 months because we have no funding" or "everything about this current situation makes exiting and cutting our losses the smarter move" moments. I can't imagine that gets any easier when you're talking about physical artifacts that require a much higher minimum feasible investment to even try.