About 25 years ago I had a co-op job with a defense contractor, working on a radar system for military aircraft. Part of the obstacle to having interns or people like me do "real" work is the security bureaucracy. It's just not worth the expense of going through the security checks for somebody who won't be working there very long.
I remember working on a simulation of one aspect of the system. I wasn't allowed to know the real operational parameters of the system, which makes testing difficult. So when testing my code I could only guess, plugging in numbers that seemed reasonable to me. Then I'd give my code to my team lead, saying "I think it works now. Want to try it?".
One thing about SpaceX is that there is no bureaucracy. If Elon Musk wasn't busy talking to someone, I could have just walked into his office and chatted with him.
I remember working on a simulation of one aspect of the system. I wasn't allowed to know the real operational parameters of the system, which makes testing difficult. So when testing my code I could only guess, plugging in numbers that seemed reasonable to me. Then I'd give my code to my team lead, saying "I think it works now. Want to try it?".