SpaceX came along decades after NASA’s most famous projects. Would SpaceX have been able to do what they did if NASA hadn’t engineered to their standard earlier

SpaceX came along decades after NASA’s most famous projects. Would SpaceX have been able to do what they did if NASA hadn’t engineered to their standard earlier on? My argument (and I’m just thought experimenting here) is that without NASA’s rigor, their programmes would have failed. Public support, and thus the market for soace projects, would have dried up before SpaceX was able to “do it faster”. (Feel free to shoot this down: I wasn’t there and I havn’t read any deep histories of the conpanies. I’m just brainstorming to explore the problem space)