AVweb
People just don’t seem to understand how SpaceX has changed the space industry.
Almost all our early space work was done by traditional aircraft companies like Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas. Obviously, when it came time to set up a test program, the people involved with aircraft testing would develop the test programs.
They were used to having one or two precious prototypes. The overwhelming drive was to protect the aircraft; losing a prototype was bad PR, and all too often involved the loss of the pilot as well.
Even worse was the loss of data. Telemetry systems were in their infancy; if the pilot were unable to talk afterwards, all you had was a couple of items (if that), radar data, and whatever you could glean from the burned wreckage.