> Aren't those solved problems though? Like, you're talking manufacturing and scaling up production, and there are other examples of heavy lift vehicles. While they are absolutely great accomplishments, it's tweaks on previous formulas.

Not at all. I'm unaware of any other heavy lift vehicles developed by a non-government entity that fly for $90 million (versus Delta Heavy's $350 million cost) and are completely reusable besides the second stage and the fairings. I'm unaware of any auto company created in the last century in the US, besides Tesla (and the ghost of GM shepherded through bankruptcy by the Obama administration), that is still in business [1].

So to answer your question, these are "solved" in the same way if you proposed to yourself, "Hey, I can build an iPhone because Apple can build and iPhone". Could you? Absolutely. Are you discounting the enormous amount of work and capital necessary to pull it off? Absolutely.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_automobile_man... (List of defunct automobile manufacturers of the United States)

Musk funded its startup, and was the driving force in building their own engines after getting laughed out of Russia [1]. Shotwell does great managing the day to day, and deserves credit for Falcon Heavy, as she was the one who told Musk they should still test fly the first one and offer it as a service (instead of going straight to BFR).

[1] https://www.inverse.com/article/34976-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-t... (When SpaceX Tried to Buy Missiles From Russia: Vodka and a Run-Around)

> The third and final meeting happened back in Russia. Musk flew there with Cantrell, prepared to purchase three ICBMs for $21 million. But to Musk’s disappointment, the Russians now claimed that they wanted $21 million for each rocket, and then taunted the future SpaceX founder. As Cantrell recounted to Esquire:

> “They said, ‘Oh, little boy, you don’t have the money?”

> This insulting event, however, played a part in inspiring Musk to found SpaceX, which in 2017 alone has successfully launched nine rockets into space and has twelve more launches on the docket this year. On the flight back, Musk turned to Cantrell and said:

> “I think we can build a rocket ourselves.”

Yeah and when Musk tweets, Gwynne needs to emergency hop on an intercontinental flight to calm down the customer.

Disclaimer: fan of spacex

You can get from one coast to the other entirely on a single interstate highway (e.g. I-80), and do it in dry weather and clear conditions. It's the easiest possible thing for an autonomous car to do and is basically just adaptive cruise control.

The hard part is making it work with crazy cyclists on city streets and blizzard conditions and defending against malicious adversaries who purposely try to confuse the car into crashing into something.