Yes, SpaceX did it with NASA money, under contract, but the point was if there was no SpaceX, or Blue Horizon, no other launch facility NASA could not have accomplished what a private organization did. It’s just not possible for a government agency to move quickly without severe prodding.
I worked as a contractor with civilian government employees on military bases. They will not do anything without a directive or rule. If it’s not on paper, they don’t do it. They have no initiative at all. Their only goal is retirement and a pension, nothing else matters.
We had a government ‘inspector’ assigned to our group to oversee our work.
He was required, as a minimum, to inspect one article per week.
And that’s exactly what he did. ONE ITEM per week.
The rest of the time he spent in his office. Came in at 8am. Left at 4pm. Didn’t see him all week except when he would come out and inspect his one item.
Others were just like him. They did the absolute minimum necessary to get by.
I had one government employee say to me, “I don’t get you. You are always busy doing something, even when your boss is not here. Why?”
The glory days of NASA are long gone and the people who made it to the moon and planets are all retired. The people there now are not made of the same stuff......
The glory days of NASA are long gone
They ended in 1972.
We the People, through our (supposedly) elected representatives, decided we'd rather have a massive welfare state.
Meanwhile, NASA's successes have ALWAYS been in partnership with contractors. Lockheed, and Rocketdyne, and Boeing, and McDonnell, and ... got us to the Moon as much as NASA did. Saying "NASA could never do [ whatever ]" is silly. The "Space Program" has always been NASA and its contractors working together.