He is with every launch and each failure. I have to cut Musk and his team some slack. To find the reason, one only has to look at our manned space program that started in the 50's.
We had more than our fair share of mishaps and explosions developing our boosters. We had all but countless Vanguard and Atlas booster failures. One of the biggest was a Vanguard failure that was broadcast live on national television. I remember watching it with my father.
Glenn was warned, and already knew about the dangers of the Atlas rocket before his first orbital flight. As far as manned flight overall, we were just plain lucky not to lose anyone in actual flight in all 3 programs. Even Apollo 13 was regarded by many as a, "successful failure".
Apollo 1 was a horrible disaster that didn't have to happen. Pushing a bad design, (a 100% oxygen cabin environment), in order to meet Kennedy's deadline, led to 3 astronauts being burned alive.
Both Shuttle disasters were due to pushing bad positions they knew about. (While it is somewhat arguable if the Columbia crew could have been rescued).
Will Musk be able to make Space-X "safe" and profitable at the same time? Perhaps by a very narrow margin. But that remains to be seen. Musk is one of the wealthiest men on this planet.
But that in itself doesn't mean much when compared to NASA. They were funded by the government.... And when they gave them more money, they only had to buy paper and ink.
