If I understand it correctly, what happened is that some people got paid to work on this full-time.
This is about what I was going to say in response, before reading your comment.
I think the key factor that makes it different from other examples is that it was a competent person’s full time job.
There are some other things that need to go right in addition to that, but I suspect that there are lots of things that people are correctly outside view gloomy about which can just be done, if someone makes it their first priority.
it must be a competent person (as opposed to merely overconfident)
who really cares about the project (more than about other possible projects)
can convince other people of their competence (the ones who have money)
gets sufficient funding (doesn’t waste their time and energy working a second job)
has autonomy (no manager who would override or second-guess their decisions)
no unexpected disasters (e.g. getting hit by a bus, patent trolls suing the project,...)
Other than the unexpected disasters, it seems like something that a competent civilization should easily do. Once you have competent people, allow them to demonstrate their competence, look for intersection between what they want to do and what you need (or if you are sufficiently rich, just an intersection between what they want to do and what you believe is a good thing), give them money, and let them work.
In real life, having the right skills and sending the right signals is not the same thing; people who do things are not the same as people who decide things; time is wasted on meetings and paperwork.
This is about what I was going to say in response, before reading your comment.
I think the key factor that makes it different from other examples is that it was a competent person’s full time job.
There are some other things that need to go right in addition to that, but I suspect that there are lots of things that people are correctly outside view gloomy about which can just be done, if someone makes it their first priority.
Things that need to go right:
it must be a competent person (as opposed to merely overconfident)
who really cares about the project (more than about other possible projects)
can convince other people of their competence (the ones who have money)
gets sufficient funding (doesn’t waste their time and energy working a second job)
has autonomy (no manager who would override or second-guess their decisions)
no unexpected disasters (e.g. getting hit by a bus, patent trolls suing the project,...)
Other than the unexpected disasters, it seems like something that a competent civilization should easily do. Once you have competent people, allow them to demonstrate their competence, look for intersection between what they want to do and what you need (or if you are sufficiently rich, just an intersection between what they want to do and what you believe is a good thing), give them money, and let them work.
In real life, having the right skills and sending the right signals is not the same thing; people who do things are not the same as people who decide things; time is wasted on meetings and paperwork.