I would draw particular attention to the Soviet N1 programme, under Sergei Korolev, who is literally regarded as perhaps the greatest rocket engineer who ever lived.

And it took him 3 attempts to get an N1 not quite as far as SpaceX managed to get last week...

...the second of which also destroyed the launch pad, in what is still the largest rocket explosion of all time.

So they rebuilt the pad and launched a third one.

Then the Americans landed on the moon, and they gave up.