In this world there are people who get paid for process, and people who get paid for results.

Ever watch a new store getting built? I've got a new car dealership and a new high-end grocery store going up in my area. These things get built FAST. The money gets made when the project is done. Until then, it's a money sink. The contractors are whipped along.

Now, look at a highway getting built. How fast does that go? There's no real incentive to go fast, since, other than commuter convenience, no real profit is made when the highway is done.

NASA is a large conglomerate of research and development outfits, spread across a huge number of congressional districts. There's a lot to be gained by developing things, but no real profit to be made by finishing something. NASA isn't even allowed to profit from its end products.

To create a space launch system from off-the-shelf components that requires only a few people to launch and maintain it is completely alien to how NASA does things. It employs few people, brings little money into congressional districts, and has blue-sky researchers sitting on their hands. I've known this for thirty years, and knew that eventually, the private sector would fill that niche.

Heck, look at the "new" NASA launch system. An Apollo on steroids, sitting on an upper stage using a variation of an old Saturn engine, on top of a variation on an existing solid booster. You'd think this would be cheap, wouldn't you? Fat chance.