Don't confuse underfunded with badly managed. NASA has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on manned spaceflight in the last 5 decades, they went to the moon, they built two space stations, but ultimately they haven't done much to push the state of the art or to make spaceflight more accessible or affordable.
In contrast, a little company like SpaceX comes along and develops two new launch vehicles AND a crew capsule for about $300 million total, dramatically lowering launch costs in the process. This is how we'll increase that number. Not by pumping more money into yet another aerospace jobs program in key congressional districts, but by encouraging the open market and innovation.
I'd cut them a break on "badly managed", blazing the trail is much more expensive than following -- and I really don't see how you can say "they haven't done much to push the state of the art".
But it does seem that it's time to pass the torch to private companies for basic "get to orbit" flights. Would be nice to see NASA blazing the next trail, whatever that is.
Given the accounting and decisions that lead to Challenger plus the political directives from DC, I think "badly managed" is pretty mild to describe how screwed up NASA is.
I still believe if a certain President had said "Permanent Human Presence" instead of "land man on the moon" it would have made all the difference. We blew it all on a race instead of building infrastructure.
In contrast, a little company like SpaceX comes along and develops two new launch vehicles AND a crew capsule for about $300 million total, dramatically lowering launch costs in the process. This is how we'll increase that number. Not by pumping more money into yet another aerospace jobs program in key congressional districts, but by encouraging the open market and innovation.