I will not be shocked if SpaceX gets to Mars before NASA. It's a huge financial undertaking, obviously, but even if they do a Mars flyby they'll still be decades ahead of NASA.
The problem comes from shifting priorities with different Administrations all the way back to the Apollo. Plus the public support for such a thing so to speak as interest wanes as costs rise and projects are delayed. Nixon started it off with the cancellation of the remaining Apollo landings that had been planned and determined a Mars program would be financially unfeasible with the final costs of the Vietnam War and decided our "space taxi" was more economical in the long run. Ford more or less followed that path though he's partially to blame along with Carter for the loss of a $2.2 billion dollar space station that couldn't be rescued because we didn't have any spacecraft capable of saving Skylab and putting it into a higher orbit. Because we used up the last Apollo craft on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and the Shuttle was delayed. (this wasn't the first time we had a lack of capabilities for US launches from US soil) So, we watched helplessly as Skylab burned up and there was nothing we could do about it.
Of course the Shuttle grew into a financial monster well away from the "cheap launch every week trip space truck" vehicle they intended. Reagan had some aspirations, mainly a more permanent space station (Skylab might have made a decent start for that) but concentrated more on rebuilding the military and working against the Soviets. Bush 41 had some plans and ideas to include a new space station and return to the moon, but four years in office isn't a lot to see them through. Clinton went international with the ISS and saw that one have it's birth and development and passed on the moon goal. Bush 43 started up the Constellation program and, again, a return to the moon with the eventual goal of Mars. Well, that program was a disaster with massive cost overruns and a significant lack of innovation.
Obama cancelled the Constellation Program (probably a good thing) and the return to the moon and implemented the SLS program along with the COTS with the goal of a asteroid mission and eventual Mars mission decades later. Again, we see massive cost overruns and lack of progress on the SLS program because Congress had to put in their pet projects in their districts by mandating the use of Shuttle technology in a brand new craft. And at close to a billion a pop every time it launches, it's not going to be much better than the Shuttle.
Enter Trump with the Artemis program and will likely be cancelled if he doesn't win reelection because, well, Trump started it and we can't have a GOP President (especially him) getting any credit for such a thing. Hell, even one of the Congressional Committee admitted that during a hearing. "This would be seen as a win for your boss."
Overall, NASA suffers more from cost overruns in planned programs, partisan politics rearing their head as well as shitty contractors like Boeing that inflate their prices that just don't perform for the money spent on them. I'm sure when the COTS program came along, Boeing chuckled at the half priced bid that SpaceX put in for their six flights and how dare an upstart think they are going to outperform our 50 years of rocket and spaceship building.
Yeah, your $4.6 billion piece of shit is still sitting on the ground and couldn't even make it to the ISS in an unmanned configuration nine months after SpaceX already docked and returned with their test vehicle. Who's laughing now?
Anyway, long winded rant to say that unless we have a clear cut, definitive and unifying national goal as well as bipartisan support without putting pet projects into certain Congressional districts, NASA will never reach Mars because each new Administration will change the priorities as soon as they get into office.
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