NASA is a sad shell of its 1960's self, and these facilities are a very literal reminder of that fact.
C'mon, everybody knows by now that the real "'scare" of Sputnik wasn't that the Russkies put a tiny satellite into orbit, but that the R7 that put it there was a capable ICBM.
The whole "man on the Moon" thing was political cover for having the biggest-baddest ICBM rockets on the planet and being able to militarize space. You can tell taxpayers that you're going to spend a huge chunk of GDP on technology to obliterate the world, or on putting a Man on the Moon. Guess which gets more "rah-rah" support? The People aren't as psycho as the government, even if they are easily fooled.
The interesting thing is that the plan backfired. Now that politicians are themselves in danger of being obliterated if they start another war, they've backed down quite a bit. At least enough to only go picking on nations that aren't nuclear-armed themselves (Iran and PRNK learned this lesson).
The actual benefits that have been accrued from the Moon Landings are minimal, and at the cost of everything else that might have been done with those resources. Where space exploration is happening, and going, is in the private sector (SpaceX, et. al) where profits are to be made providing useful services from satellites or rich-men's wish fulfilment, or from non-profits looking to further the advancement of science. The difference is that dying peacefully on a Mars colony or studying the Sun is less with the blow-up-the-world crazy. By the end of the next decade NASA itself can be mothballed - they'll still be hard at work on the Senate Launch System that nobody wants. "Mission accomplished" if one must.
