Well, that “drop in the bucket” attitude makes the squandering of NASA’s money, skills, talent, and knowledge OK, then. It isn’t as though we could save billions of dollars if we were to stop wasteful spending in the multitude of other areas of government, or that we could be a more prosperous nation if we stopped paying people to not work (welfare) and they produced even more goods and services than we produce now.

Or, it isn’t as though that squandered funding could have gone to other NASA projects or that some of it would have been spent on Commercial Crew Development in order to get it operational a couple of years ago. What could NASA’s money, skills, talent, and knowledge have been creating had those squandered resources been put to good use?

Indeed, as soon as Falcon Heavy became operational it was clear that we did not need SLS to put the first woman and the next man on the Moon, as between Falcon Heavy, Falcon 9, other existing and future rockets, Dragon, and Starliner, we have the basic equipment to get to lunar orbit. All we need now is hardware to get us to and from the lunar surface. SLS is now squandering funds that could be used to develop that hardware and to develop lunar habitats for a lunar base.

That “small expense” represents a lot of lost opportunity.

“Buying rides to the Moon to conduct science investigations and test new technology systems, instead of owning the delivery systems, enables NASA to do much more, sooner and for less cost, while being one of many customers on our commercial partners’ landers,” said Steve Clarke, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

This is an acknowledgement that the old ways are being phased out in order to be replaced with the commercial space option that was rejected in the 1980s, when Congress needed something for the Space Shuttle to do, because they still thought that the Shuttle was going to launch frequently and for low cost. Congress declared that the Shuttle would launch all U.S. government satellites and be a vehicle for commercial satellites (e.g. communication satellites), and this policy nearly destroyed the other U.S. launch capabilities. Due to the devastation of the U.S. launch market, Ariane and Russia got a lot of U.S. commercial satellite launch contracts that otherwise would have gone to U.S. companies, and eventually China got some U.S. launch contracts in the 1990s.

Now, in the 2020s, NASA is declaring a heavy reliance on commercial space companies for launch, landing, and even science-collection services. NOAA is beginning to purchase data from commercial satellite companies for weather prediction.

Several companies are coming into existence to perform services that were not previously thought to be commercially viable, such as debris mitigation. Until recently, space debris removal as an industry was thought infeasible, but now two companies are proposing this service as their business plans:
https://spacenews.com/astroscale-clearspace-aim-to-make-a-bundle-removing-debris/

Robert is right. Private enterprise and competition are not only reshaping the global aerospace launch industry but is creating other aerospace industries, too. Despite Congress, NASA is sneaking its way out of the operations mode and is entering the customer mode, relying upon commercial innovations and efficiencies rather than being the be-all end-all of space exploration and usage.

The best part of all this is that we can see that NASA intends to end its monopsony as other companies find uses for all these commercial space services and products. Not only will it be NASA, but everyone else will be able to “do much more, sooner and for less cost.“