NASA has huge funding problem. High-cost missions that need very expensive research will never be funded to completion.
And yet NASA has such 'prestige' in the US that whenever I state that on US websites like this, you can be assured that I will be down-voted to oblivion. Probably because deep in their hearts, those downvoters know that NASA is running on fumes and just literally cannot afford anything really expensive.
It's just that NASA is a very long way down on the list of priorities. Close an overseas military base or two, (you can't tell me every single one of those nine-hundred or so bases is not redundant) and you could have NASA absolutely rolling in cash.
And yet NASA has such 'prestige' in the US that whenever I state that on US websites like this, you can be assured that I will be down-voted to oblivion. Probably because deep in their hearts, those downvoters know that NASA is running on fumes and just literally cannot afford anything really expensive.