Jacob Samorodin said:

"That's how NASA could die, gradually fading away, with more - and more employees quitting, or being laid off; with fewer and fewer projects until Boeing or some other firm takes over its diminished tasks.

It's like the frog thrown into a slowly warming pot of water.
As it warms gradually, the frog sleeps, and ends up boiled to death. "

--- end quote ---

Could not have said it better myself. Where I'd disagree is the bit about "Boeing takes over its diminished tasks". Boeing has no corporate memory concerning aerospace technology. For example, when Boeing stopped doing SSTs, they laid off all the engineers involved and hauled all the paper work off to the dump. Boeing's attitude is: "Why should we spend money on something the government won't pay for?" Implied in that attitude is the assumption the government (NASA) will keep some small team of people doing SSTs at a low level. If there ever was new money available for SST work then Boeing would go to NASA to get bootstrapped. That's the way it worked in the past but not anymore. A few years ago, NASA cancelled its High Speed Civili Transport (HSCT) program and scattered the responsible engineers to the four winds. There is no corporate memory. SST technology has been erased except for what's printed in the literature (a tiny fraction of the original knowledge base). Now getting back to Jacob's quote. If NASA goes away, Boeing will not pick up the slack (that was supposed to be NASA's function). Instead Boeing will evolve into something completely different (get out of aerospace).

Gary