NASA accomplished amazing engineering feats while aiming at certain (mostly) one-off goals. SpaceX (and others) are accomplishing amazing engineering feats aim

NASA accomplished amazing engineering feats while aiming at certain (mostly) one-off goals. SpaceX (and others) are accomplishing amazing engineering feats aiming at sustainable, repeatable use of their technology, and improving as they go. Both are amazing accomplishments. But just because "landing a rocket on a barge" is not as sexy as "landing a ship with humans on the moon" doesn't mean it's that much less of an accomplishment. Remember vertical rocket landing is something NASA chose not to attempt because they thought it was going to be too hard. And that's just what SpaceX is doing.