I believe Elon Musk, Obama donor extraordinaire, is the reason NASA has been turned into a shell of it’s former self. Nice to have friends in high places who will grease the skids for you!
NASA has been a joke since we retired our heavy lifters in the 1970s in favor of the “reusable” space shuttle. They’ve been a shell for decades. Instead of putting money into R&D for better lifters they put up an almost worthless space station that isn’t even ours.
Each shuttle launch cost just under half a billion 2011 dollars. For about 3x the price you could get 5x the payload into orbit with a Saturn V.
The Falcon Heavy will be second only in payload to the Saturn V at 117,000 pounds to orbit compared to the Saturn V’s 310,000, yet at $120 million it will be about 1/10th the expected cost.
Whatever Musk’s political beliefs, SpaceX is an amazing company and I wish I had the expertise to work there.
NASA has been a shell since Carter for sure. When a better tech than the space shuttles came along in the 90s, the Delta Clipper initiative (single stage to orbit, VTOL lifting body spacecraft that could be turned around in 24 hours with a minimal ground crew and low overall per mission cost), NASA got it taken away from DARPA and given to them. NASA then made sure DC-X died a quiet death so they could stick to stupid spacecraft with wings.