I should also point out that NASA has done many great things, even in recent years, especially in the unmanned probe department.

The problem with their manned space program (ISS, Shuttle) is that it was driven largely by politics and the need to throw cash into many congressional districts, something not usually the case for smaller unmanned space projects.

The Shuttle was not the best solution for manned access to space. Much of its design, especially its size and wings, were mostly driven by a military requirement that faded out.

A better way to do it would have been a combination of unmanned large boosters for major payloads and a much smaller, reusable system for human access. They are just starting to back into this now, but I suspect they will spend as much on the capsule as they did for almost the whole Moon program.

The Shuttle was supposed to be all things to all users, like whatever a "national car" would look like if it was designed by the government.

Now, follow that with a space station program that was more designed as a science and technology employment project than a method of getting habitable volume into orbit quickly and cheaply. Mir and Skylab burned, while we spent billions putting the ISS into orbit, reinventing technologies that didn't need to be reinvented, and creating something far larger than needed at this stage of orbital habitation.