I build infrastructure (raised beds, drainage, chicken runs, composting areas) for our garden and even with that minor engineering get a good look at the level of manufacturing sophistication required to do basic things well, down to the accuracy of our mitre saw (which doesn't reset to 90 degrees very well) or staples that flatten instead of penetrating wood, or the timber I buy that isn't extremely straight. The lumber yard I go to often discards 40% of the timber in a pallet when going through it with me because it's warped or knotted or cracked and can't be used for my needs.
The manufacturing sophistication required to build a reusable space rocket is astonishing and frankly incomprehensible. It'd never be achieved in my country. We have 'barely good enough' materials for the simple stuff, and sophistication of manufacturing stands on the shoulders of layers and layers and layers of other advanced tools and processes and measurements and minute tolerances.
Even building a shed, based on the instructional videos I see on YouTube, in the US is so simple and requires so few corrections for i.e inaccuratly squared plywood. But people shrug off amazing improvements like watches that detect heart palpitations.
