"it'll never work" is quite black and white while "failure" is a lot more of a grey area. Will it actually launch? Sure, we've seen it. Will it actually hit the reliability as sold? Will it have as fast of turnaround time to reach launch timing goals? Can it actually launch as much payload as promised? Will the economics actually shake out as intended?

Did the Cybertruck "never work"? Obviously not, they're on the streets. Was it a <$40k truck with >250mi range? No.

Did FSD "never work"? Obviously not, tons of people drive many, many miles without touching the wheel. Does Tesla feel confident in it enough to not require safety operators to follow it on robotaxi trips? No. Does Tesla trust it enough to operate in the Las Vegas Loop? No. Has Tesla managed to get any state to allow it to operate truly autonomously? No.

Look, I hope Starship does work as advertised. Its cool stuff. But I don't see it as a given that it will. And given by the track record of the guy who promised it, it gives even less confidence. I'm sad there's less competition in this space. We have so many billionaires out there and yet so few out there actually willing push envelopes.

One reliable method of pushing envelopes, attracting investment and hiring smart people is to get excited about unrealistic timelines.

The best case is you meed the unrealistic timeline, the average case outcome is you solve the problem but it is delayed several years. And the worst case is it fails and investors lose some money.

If you try to hire people but your message is: we want to reduce the cost of access to space by 20% in thirty years, you are going to get approximately zero competent engineers, and a whole lot of coasters.

And no investors, so you'll be dependent on the government anyway. Depending on the government is great until people you do not agree with or are generally anti science, are in power. I assume this part should not need an example nowadays?