I feel like this is not a good comparison. Boeing took fifty years to go from the company that built that plane, to the company that helped build the Saturn V. I'm all for long time horizons, but I don't think that most startup founders envision spending fifty years on a company in order to finally, at the end of that, get to do what they wanted to do in the first place.
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Boeing didn't take a straight path from A to B so the timescale is not all that relevant. It's just an example of how things that seem impossible from a cold start seem more possible when you think in steps. It's not step 1 - raise $250m , step 2 - build spaceship.
Elon Musk seems like the counterexample because he started with so much capital and credibility. But he was very obviously thinking steps from the start. Each one risky. Build engine. Build high end car. Buildlower end cars. Maybe then build parts for other manufacturers.
Most big goals are reached in steps. The more difficult and risky the goal the more steps there are and the bigger and riskier they are likely to be but they are still steps.
If your goal is building spaceships you could start by doing something useful with satellites as a step 1. This could be a kickstart-able sized undertaking.
https://www.google.ie/search?q=site:https://www.kickstarter....
Obviously if you are trying to push the boundaries of what a cold start startup can possibly achieve, you are going to find yourself on the difficult-impossible border region but that's the point, isn't it?
I don't know about most startup founders, but I think YC might be okay with a fifty-year time horizon given that Sam said that they invest with an "infinite time horizon" and that needing to raise a billion dollars over the course of a company's lifetime is a "plus".
for anyone who is both willing and able to do one of these 'breakout technology' companies, the company is what they want to do in the first place.