: The budget was too small.

: The engineering was insufficient - the mast bearings failed, the hulls
: buckled.

: The construction was insufficient - the facings did not bond to the cores.

: The testing was insufficient - the construction problem was not detected.

: About par for the course for novel projects.

If true, that follows a classic model.
Engineering should be validated before construction.
Construction should be validated before testing.

I'm a software guy, but have seen this pattern more often than I would care to.
No checks and balances, and the project goes off the rails before having
any chance of succeeding.

I was actually told one time that there was no money in the budget for
design, and we had to go straight to construction. Yikes.
That project was less than a resounding success.

I don't know if that's what happened here, but I wouldn't be surprised.
This lesson isn't often learned until there is a catastrophic failure.