Hmmm. Good question!

LOL.. I always like the statement "why don't they spend the money year instead of in space"... well the money IS SPENT ON EARTH.. who do you think designs, and builds the thing.

The biggest problem with NASA is that it is a government agency. It is impossible to develop a long term strategy when the priorities change every 4 or 8 years. Kennedy challenged NASA to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade in the 1960's. Why the end of the decade? Because if he won re-election he would have finished his second term during that time frame. Even though Nixon was not a big space advocate, the hardware was already built so finishing the Apollo program was not a big issue. Also, the first landing took place only 6 months into his administration. Reagan called for the space station in the 80's, it got changed multiple times (by Bush 1 and Clinton) before it was started. Bush II pushed the Constellation program, which was killed by Obama a few months into his term. Obama cancelled it because he said it was overbudget. Which is moronic since he never worried about the budget with all his budget busting programs. Obama focused NASA away from the moon and to a climate change research agency. Jim Bridenstine did a great job as NASA director during Trump's term but now NASA has ANOTHER direction. A moon and Mars program will take 20-25 years to really develop and design. This country can't see past the mid-term elections, so I don't have much hope.

We have been, the place looks like a used car lot! To understand real engineering, realize that the last two rovers the USA sent were intended to last about 6 months but ended up running for over decade. Somehow this was accomplished without any considerations about feelings, chromosome/gender/melanin/racial diversity or any other such nonsense. When you have only chance and every last item must work perfectly, you don't about fluff, you just get the best people regardless of "equity".