And yet, no matter how obvious the prestige (both national and personal), power (ditto), and wealth available to anyone who can build an org with capabilities similar to SpaceX, nobody else seems to be anywhere close. In spite of the massive subsidies and support which a number of governments (espec. China) are providing to credible would-be Musks.

What if at-scale rocket science is just extremely hard, and efforts to find "another Musk" continue to fail?

There's nothing stopping you from winning an NBA championship, just suit up and dunk the ball.