> We can build huge things like airliners, massive bridges and buildings without starting small.

We did start small with all of those things. We developed rigorous disciplines around engineering, architecture, material sciences. And people died along the way in the thousands[0][1]

People are still dying from those failures; The Boeing 737 MAX 9 crash was only two years ago.

> Incremental makes less sense to me when you want to go to mars.

This is yet another reason why a manned Mars mission will be exceedingly dangerous NOT a strike against incremental development and deployment.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_building_and_structure...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...