Agreed.
NASA is an awesome organization, but the political requirements they have which seem to be congressional mandates to pump good money after bad into hogs like Lockheed, Grumman, Harris, etc... is their greatest failure.
I have tried many times to find any records of successful projects from the companies building the SLS. Not once have they ever come close to deadline or within 100% of their original budget. They appear to habitually underbid on contracts to win them. They then appear to invest heavily in posturing for more money. Then when lawsuits fly, they provide massive golden parachutes and eventually start work understaffed and without the right people. What few projects they actually complete are often rubbish.
I don't always agree with Elon Musk. His choice to poison the planet with lithium waste and intentionally not focusing on a better method of lowering the cost of recycling lithium pisses me off. I grew up with a fear of the beach because of toxic and medical waste washed ashore because assholes like him chose the easier path. But, NASA needs to help build more companies like his. Companies the say "If you give us $100 million, we'll do the same as those big guys need $5 billion for".
Even better, try to build dreams. There are probably 1 million+ highly skilled and experienced hackers and engineers here that would happily work a 2-4 year stint making new space tech if we had any idea where to apply.
How about a massive maker fair where mad scientists and creative geniuses gather to present ideas. Once a day for two weeks, a group walks the floor, evaluates projects and cancels some and move those engineers to other teams which made the cut. At the end, give 5-10 teams a development budget of $10 million and 6 months wages. Call them back and the teams who show something that actually works will be granted funds and contracts.
There are so many better ways to work than how NASA does.